


The Return Home

by iamnotanut



Series: The Return Home [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Canon-Typical Violence, Hannibal Rising References, M/M, Soldier Will Graham, World War II, Young Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotanut/pseuds/iamnotanut
Summary: A platoon of stranded Allied soldiers discover a child in the woods. Will Graham gains the trust of this silent boy on their journey home.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: The Return Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731751
Comments: 107
Kudos: 447





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been fascinated by the Hannibal Lecter series since I was young and only just caved in to watching the TV show this year. Yes. In 2020. Anyway, I have no idea what I was holding out on because now I'm completely obsessed.  
> Heavy inspiration comes from Hannibal Rising, but also low-key from emungere's [teen hannibal ficlets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8445424/chapters/19348798).  
> I really think Hannibal would have turned out differently if he had been introduced to Will earlier in his life. Or... maybe not. We'll find out together!  
> This is basically unedited, so I'm sorry for any errors!  
> 

Down the barrel of his rifle Will met a pair of dark, desperate eyes.

He dropped the muzzle instantly, huffing a cloud out of his neck gaiter and into the cold. Around him, his fellow soldiers kept their aim.

“Hold fire!”

The three soldiers from his small fire team hesitated. Over the cover of their winter gear they glanced from their target to the sergeant. The rest of the platoon, expressions obscured, maintained their stances with fingers heavy on their triggers.

“Stand down!” Will begged them, “For god’s sake, he’s just a boy.”

Just as he grabbed the barrel closest to him to force it down, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

Lieutenant Colonel James Crawford blared in his ear, “Stand down, men.”

The soldiers responded with cold obedience.

The boy watched their movement with all the wired attention of a cornered animal. His hands flexed at his sides. His angular face was drawn in a sneer, but Will felt the overwhelming exhaustion that blurred the boy's vision. Will saw the sea of anguish brewing just beneath the skin and felt the ice of it pierce his own heart.

It was hard to determine age from how gaunt the boy was, though there were enough childlike tells to convince Will he could not be more than twelve or thirteen. Will could not trust the worn look of those dark eyes. War had a habit of hardening children with unwanted maturity.

At the jutting of the colonel’s chin, one of the officers spoke to the boy. First in Russian, then German and English. None of the soldiers spoke Polish or the native Lithuanian very well. Their broken attempts were met with silence.

Will tensed, sensing what the colonel and his fellow officers were thinking. An innocent civilian would have said something by now. Some gripped their rifles, ready for the colonel’s next order. What was one more dead boy in a country swarming with enemies and spies. It wouldn’t be the first time their platoon had made that call.

Will lurched forward, stopped only by the colonel’s grip. Will's responding glare was ripe with insubordinate outrage.

Giving him only a passing glance, the colonel removed his hand. Despite their separation in rank, Will knew the colonel well enough to take that as permission. Will swallowed hard and squared off with the wild boy standing on the snowy turf.

Animal eyes locked on him and suddenly they were alone in the frozen clearing.

In a slow and fluid movement, Will pulled down his gaiter to expose his face. He released a puff of white, nervously licking his cracked lips. An instinctive chill ran through him.

This boy was not prey.

There was no fear in him, only the promise of great violence. Seeing him now, Will doubted bullets would stop the boy from mangling the soldiers in reach with those claw-like fingers. In another life, they were pianist’s hands. Strong and dexterous fingers, now permeated by a purple cold. There was filth caked under his nails. Blood or dirt, Will could not be sure.

Will realized his gaze had wandered and he met that feral stare again. Underneath it, something had been disarmed. There was a spark of curiosity now.

It reminded Will of his strays back home. Will's little house existed in a world of warmth and ease which felt more dreamlike with each passing day. One by one he had coaxed strays into his care with a silent declaration of trust. To each he made a voiceless pledge to do no harm and protect them at all cost.

That flicker of interest was all Will needed.

Unable to break eye contact now, Will took tentative steps away from the platoon.

The boy flinched. Ready to flee—ready to strike.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I want to help you.”

He moved cautiously forward, but felt the boy’s rising panic and stopped. Will had met the wall of the boy’s boundary. The troops behind him were growing impatient. Will could hear the metallic clatter of their riffles. Their feet crunched in the snow as they shifted weight. The boy could hear it too. His ears were practically twitching. Another step would send the boy running, to be chased by bullets. If Will were with a stray he would be prepared to wait as long as it took, but they didn’t have the luxury of time.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised.

He couldn’t be sure if the boy understood English. Then again neither could a dog. A private smile twitched at Will’s lip, and the boy stilled.

Another invisible wall crumbled. The boy’s eyes brightened with cutting insight and intelligence. Will was dissected in an instant.

Will should have found this abrupt change suspicious or intimidating. Instead, he was oddly comforted.

On a bizarre impulse, Will pulled off his glove and stretched out his bare hand.

A genuine smile broke across his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I think Jack Crawford is a great character. He is an asshole who does whatever it takes to get his way and I LOVE that. He was more a villain to Will in book than Hannibal or the Dragon. My poor roommate had to listen to me rant about him day and night when I was re-reading it recently.

The Lieutenant Colonel was too highly ranked to be running their motley platoon. Considering their losses in the campaign, however, the colonel had little choice in the matter. They were too deep in occupied country, and too far from Allied forces to change anything about it. Now that their mission was complete, all that was left was to make it home.

Even with the end in sight, insubordination was not to be tolerated. The colonel waited to address Sergeant William Graham until they were on the road.

So long as their cargo truck had fuel to burn, the boy would not be forced to walk. At the moment he was buried in a ragged and prickly blanket. Sergeant Graham walked closely behind with a hand resting on the truck bed to watch as he slept.

“Has he said anything?”

Graham shook his head. “Passed out as soon as I sat him down.”

“Anything on him?”

“No. No papers, nothing of value. He’s in a uniform—” Graham’s eyes narrowed at the colonel’s piqued interest before he added sharply, “It’s not military.”

“Sergeant Graham, I take issue with your tone.”

Graham met him with an unwavering glare. The colonel had to give the man credit. There were very few people who would risk challenging James Crawford, rank or no rank.

“I didn’t put you in this platoon to cause me trouble, Will.” He waited a few steps before continuing, “If it had been anyone else in command, you would have been discharged a long time ago.”

Will couldn’t help but bristle at that. Considering Will’s history, it was an easy dig for the colonel.

They had all done ugly things under orders in this war—things Will would never forgive himself for. Will kept his eyes on the boy, unable to forget the other unknowns that hadn’t been so lucky. They had left suspected spies, deserters, and looters unburied on the side of the road. It was sanctioned murder, and by far not the worst thing Will had seen his commanding officer turn a blind eye to.

His thoughts slipped into the open air, “A little defiance from me seems like the least of your worries.”

The colonel’s chest swelled with anger. He bit out, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

The man slumped. A matted curl that clung to his brow fell loose. His thumb absently stroked the wood of the truck bed. Even with the deep shadows under his eyes, Will watched the boy with fondness—as if the only good thing to come of this war was wrapped in that blanket.

The colonel saw a man defeated. He saw a man clinging onto the last of his humanity.

It was not the colonel’s place to feel guilty. It was his job was to get results.

With Will Graham at his disposal, that’s exactly what he got.

“You’ve done good work out here, Will. I’ll make sure the CIC knows that when this is over.”

With only silence from Will Graham, the colonel did what he had always done. He left the man alone to his devices. He knew from experience that his hound did better on a long leash.

Before he could go however, Will spoke. His quiet voice was aimed at the snow.

“Thank you, Jack.”

Out of Will’s line of sight, the colonel felt a tinge of smugness. In his informality the sergeant was almost playful, “The only orders on the field will come from me. Am I clear on that, Will?”

Will nodded, then answered. “Yessir.”

Satisfied, the colonel finally left him.

In his solitude, Will let out a grumbling sigh. He nearly yelped when dark eyes flicked open from under the bundled blanket.

Will released his instinctive grip on the rifle strap, but his adrenaline continued to pump through him. His mind filled in the blanks, presenting him with a vision where he had pulled the gun into his hands. Where a black hole drilled between the child's eyes. A soldier wasn’t used to pleasant surprises. Not that a child should know that. Will pushed back his hood to tussle his feverish head in the cold air.

The boy leaned away from the wall of the truck, expressionless as he examined Will.

“I didn’t realize you were awake,” Will said. “Are you hungry?”

The boy nodded once before Will started to dig in his bag for rations.

He understood English after all.

Will hesitated to present the food and considered using it as a reward for more information. The cogs had only just started to turn when he recognized it was Jack Crawford's voice in his head. He shivered free of Jack's influence and passed over all he had to the boy. More than once Will had to tell the boy to slow down or he’d choke.

“We were near Vilnius when we found you.”

The boy'd hands twisted at the city's name. Reality descended and Will watched fragments of his identity crawl back. Until that moment the boy had been no one. Loss had been pushed far away to the edges of his shunned memory.

Will wished he hadn’t said anything. He was even more reluctant now to ask after his family. The uniform he wore was like something from a boarding school. Though to Will it held more similarity to a prison uniform. Maybe an orphanage.

“I’m sorry we can’t take you back.”

Will was already getting familiar with the boy’s micro expressions. While there was no change in his countenance, the air around him lightened at the news.

A runaway, then.

The boy uncovered the last of Will’s jerky, dark and stringy red, and stopped cold. He fixated on the meat, eyes wide and blank. Will felt a pit open up within the boy and a sea of anguish lashed at them from below, threatening to swallow them both.

Carefully Will removed the meat from the boy's trembling hand, and stowed it in the bag.

He took out his logbook and a pencil. He extended them to the boy.

As it was when Will offered his bare hand, the boy stared in awe at the flimsy book. The pencil was a stub now, shaved short.

His intelligent eyes darted from Will to the book and back again. He dug into Will’s thoughts, peering past his more obvious intentions.

Despite the colonel's interest, Will had no motivation to manipulate this child into cooperation. He didn't need information, not anymore. Will had completed his work in this country and it was time for him to return home.

All the same, Will was compelled to cast this feeble lifeline. For the boy and perhaps for himself.

The boy took the book and maneuvered the stubby pencil in his stiff fingers.

He started awkwardly, “My name is Will Graham.” There was no reason for him to list his rank and position in the army. It wouldn't mean anything to the boy, and it certainly didn't to him.

In elegant script, Will was answered.

_Hannibal Lecter VIII_

Will smiled. Hannibal. He almost laughed at the roman numerals. The boy was eighth of his name, and proud of it.

Then Will gripped the truck bed. He couldn’t avoid it any longer.

“Do you have any family?”

The boy’s reactions were tempered by the ability to write. It allowed him to be detached.

_My uncle lives in France._

It was strange to see English written so well in a foreign country. Will wondered for a moment how Lithuania would recover from its invasion. The Soviets were slotting in behind the Germans. Will knew better than to believe they would give up their power in this country now that they had it.

He wondered how much longer the people here would write and speak in their native tongue.

_?_

Will realized he hadn’t said anything for some time and nodded to Hannibal. It was a gesture usually reserved for the colonel, to indicate that he was present—aware of himself again.

_Where are we going?_

“We’ll join up with Soviet forces in Kaunas.” The colonel wouldn’t approve of him saying. Will rubbed a hand over his face, “After that, I’m not sure. They say the war will be over soon, but I just can’t see it.”

The boy stared at him, eyes burning.

The war wouldn’t be over for a very long time. Not for either of them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another! *slams mug*

The boy had nightmares. The only time they heard his voice was when he screamed in the night.

The first time it happened, Will had been at his campfire with his team.

He was chased out of sleep by his own haunted visions and awoke sweating under his heavy clothes. Streams of white air trailed from his panting mouth. He undid his coat, frantic for breath until his heart finally settled. It was always the blood that stayed with him. It pooled out of the corner of his eye.

The trees around the platoon were bars to a cage, as if they had been put there for observation. Will wondered bitterly if it was the Devil or God that picked at his brain in his sleep.

The platoon had been forced to abandon their tents in a retreat long ago. They had almost lost more men to the merciless cold than they had in battle. As it was with the other dead, there was no way to bury them in the frozen woods. Instead, the bodies trailed behind the platoon like breadcrumbs.

There was another team awake keeping watch. They kept the fires going while the rest slept.

There was a time when Will would have joined them. Early in the campaign he made friends with the watch in the witching hours. He’d have a share of their coffee when there was still some to be had.

It had been a long time since he felt welcome in their company. The colonel made sure of that.

It was then that he heard it. A whimpering from the truck.

Will didn’t believe his ears at first. He thought it might be the remnants of his delusions.

Then it came again, a pleading and frantic blubber of sound. Like something being strangled.

The back of the truck was cavernous. He and the nightwatch stared into the hole as if a bear might magically appear.

Then the screaming started.

Will sprinted for the truck—half out of concern for the boy, half for the secrecy of their camp.

He clamored up to where Hannibal thrashed. The boy's voice was raw already and tears poured down his filthy cheeks. When Will grabbed him, Hannibal resisted. He clawed at Will’s face, biting at his hands.

As if he was taming strays again, Will kept his hands steady. He didn’t flinch away or fight back. He let the boy dig sharp teeth into the meat of his hand until he drew blood. Until Will felt his bones creak in the grip of the boy’s jaw.

He pulled the boy into the wall of his chest. When Will dreamed, he often wished someone would hold him. He wondered if the boy would resent him for assuming the same.

Then Hannibal became still, like a bird dies.

The nails embedded in Will's cheek eased.

“Hannibal.” Will realized he hadn’t said the name aloud until now. The echoes of southern twang shaped the first /a/ in a way that embarrassed him. “Are you alright?”

Hannibal held Will’s hand, staring at the jagged bite. The cold made his blood run slow. It pearled and oozed black in the dark.

Will put his good hand on Hannibal’s head and lightly rubbed his hair.

“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.” He scooted on the truck bed so Hannibal could lean easier into him. He said again, “It doesn’t hurt.”

Exhausted, Hannibal curled into Will who pulled the ratty blanket over them both. Will watched the camp from inside the truck.

He continued to mutter his small reassurances long after Hannibal drifted asleep.

The fabric cover on the truck framed the world outside like a painting. Will wished he could step away from it and move on to the next, as he would in a gallery.

He felt far from the camp. From all of them. With the boy at his side, he felt very far.

When the blue morning came and the camp awoke, the boy was limp. It made Will chuckle. Hannibal was still young enough that sleep was more like death.

He tucked the boy in and returned to the world.

—

They walked continuously, taking shifts sitting in the truck to eat and huddle by the radiators. The colonel did not want to camp until nightfall. By the map they should reach the next city in a matter of days. At their pace however, it might take a week. They were losing momentum, and Crawford knew it. He rightfully believed the harsh winter would pick them off if he did not push them.

Will did not want to show favor to the boy and stayed away from the truck in the daytime. He didn’t want the other soldiers to use the boy to torment him. They would, even if they didn’t mean to. Without any other way to entertain themselves, they would whisper threats to Hannibal just to watch the boy shrink in despair. Just to watch Will flush with rage.

But the boy did not shrink, even at their promises of torture and pain at the hands of imaginary enemies. It gave Will a strange strength. He could keep his eyes away and trust in the boy’s resilience.

Even so, he knew Hannibal’s dreams would not stop. He told the colonel as much.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

There was a bend in James Crawford’s character that reared its ugly head at times like these, and Will was all too familiar with it. The colonel reveled in the little moments when he had absolute control. He liked when his particular brand of punishment and reward would put his chess pieces right where he wanted them.

“Let me watch the boy at night.” Will knew the colonel had Hannibal in the truck to keep an eye on him. “I’ll keep him quiet.”

“You’ll have to tie him—”

“No.”

There was a wound on Hannibal’s neck where his flesh had been torn in a crude line. Will had seen it before on corpses. Their skin had fused to the metal chains in the cold and ripped free.

“No, I’ll watch him. He won’t run.”

Will thanked the colonel's good mood when he allowed it. The boy would stay with him.

Will’s small team was apprehensive at first. If the boy did run, it would be their heads on Crawford’s chopping block. It didn’t take long for them to realize the boy and Will would not part easily.

Hannibal wisely waited until they were asleep to take out Will’s logbook. He kept it obscured from the watch.

He showed Will something he had written earlier in the day.

 _Does your hand hurt?_ Then clearly after some time passed, he had added, _Can I see it?_

Will reluctantly unbandaged his hand. He had not lied when he told Hannibal it did not hurt him, but it wasn’t pretty.

There was colorful bruising around the bite, particularly on his joints and bones. The teeth marks had risen red, and the pinch of Hannibal’s jaw had pierced deepest at Will’s wrist. He had cleaned it well in the morning, and fresh scabs stopped the bleeding.

Hannibal took it all in with a unreadable expression, perhaps detachment.

He pressed the pencil to the page, but did not write. He did not apologize.

Will was glad.

He cleaned and wrapped his hand once more. He had been taught how to do it properly and was well aware of the consequences if he did not. Hannibal observed Will with rapt attention. His fingers twitched and moved around the book. He was mirroring Will's movement. It reminded Will of men on the assembly line. Their tasks were so ingrained in muscle memory that their hands continued to build even in their sleep.

A sad smile quirked Will's mouth. He hoped Hannibal’s hands would stay dexterous and strong, and that they would never be broken. He hoped that, in the dream of a more peaceful world, those artist's hands would serve Hannibal well.

The canvas on the truck barred the wind, but the campfire was warmer than the radiators. They sat huddled close as the night dragged on, both reluctant to let their nightmares take them.

Will stared at the fire while Hannibal scribbled passionately in the book. He waited for the boy to present it to him, but he did not.

Will swallowed his heart before saying, “If you run, you have to leave the book.”

Hannibal’s hand stopped.

“If you run… you have to leave it,” he said again.

Hannibal lifted his head. His eyes were wide and young.

Will clenched his jaw to keep firm. “If someone found it on you, they’d kill you. You understand that, don’t you?”

They wouldn’t see the one-sided conversation of an orphaned boy. They would see an American sergeant’s detailed log from three years of covert assignments. They would see dates and locations and targets.

Will was tempted to take it now, seeing how attached the boy was to it. Better to hurt him now.

The boy lurched to write his defense, but stopped short. He flipped the page to a blank one, back and forth. He didn't want to show Will what he had been writing before, but it would be a waste to start a new one. It was reassuring to read the boy so clearly for once. It almost made Will laugh. An uncharacteristic flush brewed on the boy's cheeks at his conflict. Finally he gave in and wrote on the original page before handing the book to Will.

On the empty right page he had written, _Please let me keep it. I won’t run._

Filling the left was a study of Will’s hand. The garish wound was perfectly documented with repetition from varying angles. Over some of their earlier dialogue, Hannibal had drawn Will’s profile in the firelight. Will had completely forgotten about the damage to his cheek. He touched where the wound was depicted to be and felt the sting.

Knowing Will had had ample time to read his response, Hannibal covered the book with his hand. He did not take it, but waited for permission.

With a sigh, Will released it.

—

Hannibal reopened Will’s wound the next night and added new ones. Nothing as deep and damaging as the first bite.

Will checked it regularly for infection. He saw something unknown flash in Hannibal’s dark eyes at the sight and made an effort to keep future inspections hidden.

One cruel soldier suggested he wear gloves next time.

Will knew better than to try it. His bare hands were what won trust at their first encounter. The thought of wearing them felt... impersonal.

In the mornings, Hannibal was always quiet. While the soldiers disassembled their camp, the boy drew absently in the dirt with a stick. Childish things. Birds and rabbits. Butterflies and windows.

One morning, his stick stopped.

He had drawn an “M”.

His stick stayed still in the dirt, incapable of making anything more. The cogs of Hannibal's mind slowed to a halt.

Then he stood and scrub it all out with his foot.

Will asked him to help pack up, and he did with diligence. He folded his blanket and rolled up his cot. He helped hide remnants of the campfire.

By their calculations they were only days away from the city of Kaunas.

Once they were on the move, one of the watchmen asked a Brit, “What is ‘ _misha_ ’?”

“Mih-sha…” The Brit tested it on his tongue, “ _Misija_?”

Will listened to them talk at his back as they marched.

“What is that? _Misija_." Then his voice traveled toward the truck where Hannibal was resting. "Isn’t that ‘mission’?”

It felt too private to say, but Will was more afraid of where their ill formed deductions would take them.

He said over his shoulder, “It’s a name.”

He took a few steps, watching the dirt. Under his breath where they could not hear, Will gave voice to the chasm under Hannibal’s skin.

“‘M’, for Mischa.”


	4. Chapter 4

When Hannibal was strong enough to walk, he refused to leave Will’s side. If the team of three under Will’s command noticed the logbook tucked in the boy’s oversized coat, they didn’t mention it to the colonel. Will didn’t think he had any friends left in the platoon, but maybe he was wrong. Or perhaps they still had enough mercy in them to protect one lost boy.

The Brits, too, found the boy endearing. With the name Mischa echoing through the camp, it was hard for them not to. They tried to spark conversation with Hannibal, starting with German and Russian. They had been reviewing Polish in the last few days, but their Lithuanian was still appalling judging by Hannibal’s particularly muted reaction to it.

Out of curiosity, Will tried his hand at French and Hannibal’s ears perked.

Will talked with the Brits in French under the pretense of refreshing his vocabulary with them. They avoided mention of the war effort, instead dwelling on pleasant memories. One of the Brits had been stationed at Bordeaux and painted a picture of his time lounging on the beach in Arcachon Bay. It sounded like heaven to Will—Then again, everything sounded better in French.

Will’s thoughts wandered to Hannibal’s surviving family. He wondered what kind of home they had waiting for him. He was sure they would be looking for the boy and his family. He imagined the kind of life Hannibal would have in France, once he joined his uncle there. Once the war was over and the country could rebuild.

When he and his squad settled in by the fire that night, it was obvious to Will that something had shifted. He wasn’t sure what to expect when out of seemingly nowhere Zeller launched into a tale from his childhood.

He blabbered about his two sisters who lived in Baltimore. He hadn’t gotten a new letter from them in months, but that didn’t stop him from pulling out his collection for Hannibal to see.

There was a time when Zeller used to pour over those letters incessantly. He would still cling to them in his darker moments, but Will hadn’t heard their stories told aloud with enthusiasm since they first arrived in Europe. It gave him a soothing sense of nostalgia. He had never met them, but Will was sure he could pick Zeller’s sisters out from a crowd.

Zeller showed Hannibal a picture of his baby nephew. He was three now, he proudly said. The boy stiffened at the image, but Zeller had stowed it and was on to the next story before Hannibal’s discomfort could linger.

Too awkward to do much else, Will pat the boy’s back and grimaced an attempted smile.

The Price twins chimed in to swap their own stories, but they didn’t get far into it before an argument broke out over whose memory was more accurate. That ended like it always did when the younger Price stubbornly removed himself from the group. He took a swig from his hidden supply of vodka and rolled away from them in his cot.

The elder brother, Jimmy Price, sighed and muttered apologies to the other men. As soon as they were sure the younger brother was asleep, the three men discussed the pros and cons of having siblings.

“My parents gave me the gift of a twin. Who wouldn’t want two of me?”

“I don’t envy you there. Middle’s the sweet spot,” Zeller claimed with confidence. The squad knew Will was an only child by this point and Zeller liked to tease him about it. “Family friction is usually a catalyst for personality development.”

Will gave a tight-lipped smirk, “And if there’s no friction?”

Zeller presented his hands at Will. Case and point, in his eyes. Zeller’s argument was that having siblings kept you in check. He believed they taught you right and wrong before anyone else.

“It’s harder to get into trouble when you have witnesses there to rat you out.”

Price fervently disagreed. He and his brother had spent most of their lives trying to one-up each other with their trouble-making shenanigans.

Somehow Will ended up telling the story about how he stole a watermelon as a child. He had to clear a barbwire fence in his escape. There had been no one to stop him.

“See, Junior?” Zeller shrugged in Hannibal’s direction, “A criminal mind, even at that age.”

Will’s lips pressed into a fine line, but quickly fought a grin when he saw Hannibal roll his eyes.

Jimmy tucked himself into his cot, saying, “Why would someone from New Orleans join the Army? I thought you all were Navy down there.”

Whenever Jimmy had asked him before, Will didn’t bother to answer seriously. He knew Jimmy wasn’t interested in getting to know Will better, but more likely wished to air his preferences between Army men and Navy men.

Feeling Hannibal’s eyes on him, Will decided to be honest for once.

“My father worked for Higgins Industries. He was building boats for the war before we were even in it.” This was news to his team. Their original platoon had come in on a U-boat. Hell, everyone had. Will took a deep breath, “He didn’t want me in the Navy. He didn’t want me to hate sailing when I came back.”

He realized in the following silence that he had said too much.

“I joined the Army straight out of high school,” said Zeller.

Brian Zeller had a way of cutting through the harder stuff, rather than dwelling on it. That or he couldn’t read the room. Will envied him either way.

Will managed a smirk, “Me too.”

After a few more pleasant exchanges, the rest of Will’s team fell asleep.

Will and Hannibal sat together. Hannibal was writing equations in the dirt, busying his mind to keep from falling asleep.

The symbols were familiar, at least. Some things Will recognized from nautical geometry, or maybe engineering? It was elegant, whatever it was. That’s what one of his teachers had told him in school. There was beauty in mathematics.

The proof in the dirt was the product of a mind whose imagination had no set limits. It was a melding of concepts, like the blending of paint.

“Where’d you learn that?”

He wrote in the dirt.

_Tutor_

He abandoned the equation and produced Will’s book. He sat gracefully at Will's side so he could read over Hannibal's shoulder.

He hesitated on the page, as he tended to do when he was asking for something.

_You can sail?_

Will nodded. “Can you?”

The boy shook his head, disappointed, and Will almost laughed at the absurdity of it. This child could produce equations from memory. Aside from his own language, he could write and speak in English—most likely French as well. Who knew what else. It wasn’t uncommon for children in Europe to have a tutor, but this was excessive. Will knew money when he saw it. Hannibal practically radiated privilege.

Will had a half buried grudge against the rich, but there was no point in taking it out on a child. And it wasn't like the boy was benefiting from his family's wealth now.

Hannibal was staring at him, waiting.

“You might not sail, but you can probably ride a horse.”

_You can’t?_

Will let himself laugh at that. “Horses don’t like me.”

_They can sense fear._

Will hummed and tried not to feel insulted. “Makes sense.”

_Where will you go when the war is over?_

“Home, I guess. I’m not sure.” He thought of the colonel. Somehow he imagined it would be difficult to escape the colonel now that he knew what Will was capable of.

_Will you sail?_

Will smiled at those three little words.

“That would be nice, I think.”

Hannibal pressed the pencil to paper, but didn’t write. He closed the book and gripped it in his hands. He deliberated in the quiet for a moment before opening to the book again.

Instead of returning to the empty pages, Hannibal flipped to Will’s rough calendar near the beginning. He trailed his finger over the months, lingering on January.

Will heard the unasked question.

Will traced down the page, landing finally on January 20th.

Hannibal pursed his lips—an expression Will had never seen. More childlike than anything the boy had displayed. He tapped his foot in the dirt with a light blush on his cheeks.

He flipped to the back of the book and wrote quickly.

Just when Will caught the first word, Hannibal clapped the pages shut.

Tentatively, Will opened his hand for the book. The bandage was not a clean white, but it glowed bright against Will's calloused palm.

Hannibal stared at the bandage as he handed over the book.

_It’s my birthday today._

Will broke into a smile, exhaling another laugh. The boy must have known all day.

Will returned the logbook, “Happy Birthday, Hannibal.” The name was still foreign in his mouth.

Will didn’t expect a smile from the boy, and he didn’t get one. Not outright. The sound of his name welcomed a softness to Hannibal's air and a glimmer in his eye.

The contentment it gave Will was unlike anything he’d known. He hadn’t felt this light since before the war, if ever. Laughter was bubbling in him, high and warm.

Hannibal pressed the pencil into the paper again hard enough that Will feared he might break it.

_May I ask for something?_

Will bent over and rested folded arms on his knees. He nodded.

_Will you teach me how to sail?_

An ache twisted in Will before he had time to react, so severe that unexpected tears gathered in his eyes. He pinched between his eyes and fought back the feeling. Like ice had broken open and dropped him into freezing water.

There was a tender touch on his forehead. Hannibal pressed his hand to Will’s face, pushing back his ratty curls. He knelt beside Will, brows knit. The wonder and confusion was plain on his face.

It was the first time Will had looked directly in the boy’s eyes since they met.

Now that there was conscious life there and not just the engine of instinct, Will could see a strange color swimming in the dark of Hannibal's stare. There were flecks of red, now illuminated by the cracking fire.

There was a morbid loveliness about them. Like blood flicked on stained mahogany.

Will felt himself congeal somewhere between joy and despair.

Hannibal’s resilience flooded into him and resonated with his own. It spoke to the part of Will that he had vehemently resented all his life.

Hannibal’s detachment unnerved him. Not because it struck him as heartlessness, but because it wasn’t. The boy was not numb or dispassionate. Looking at Hannibal, Will caught a glimpse of the unforgivable poetry that underscored the indifference of nature. Like an equation that would inevitably balance out.

Another tear skidded down his cheek and Will blinked as if coming awake. He leaned out of Hannibal’s hand. The boy sat apart, still fixated on Will’s expression. A chemist noting reactions.

Will wondered briefly if Hannibal had been earnest in his request, or if he had simply wished to watch Will suffer. Infected with Hannibal’s residual calm, Will decided it didn’t matter. He dug in his bag and produced a long, heavy cord. He looped it over his knife and pulled. The cord cut with a pop and he handed half to Hannibal.

This was how he started. Long before his father let him set foot on a boat.

Will tied a knot—the first he ever learned.

After a moment of reverence, Hannibal tied his own.


	5. Chapter 5

In the fogginess of Will’s sleep, he heard the watchmen yelling. So accustomed to the frantic violence of his nightmares, he did not realize the sounds were real.

It was the gunshots ringing in the trees that woke him.

His eyes barely open, Will’s hand lurched out to Hannibal who had started to sit up. He shoved the child into the ground as the shouting started, then screams. He sandwiched the child between his body and the ridged turf while shots cracked around them in rapid succession.

There were two gunmen somewhere in the woods. They fired into the clustered men with semi-automatic rifles. Soldiers that found cover took aim and fired into the dark, eyes keen for the flash of the gunmen’s barrels.

Will was unsure of what tipped the watchmen off until a small army of scrappy rebels poured out of the woods to flank them.

The camp exploded into action like an uncovered ant hill. The rebels crowded between the colonel’s ranks before the platoon could form up, forcing them to risk friendly fire.

Jimmy Price emptied his pistol over Will’s head, “Get in the truck!”

Will slung his rifle over his shoulder and hauled Hannibal to his feet. Will dragged the boy as he charged for the cab of the truck.

He threw Hannibal at the door to open it while he wheeled around, pulling his rifle into his hands.

A rebel was right on him—too close. They yanked the barrel away, tugging Will along by the strap around his back. They wrestled for the gun until Will pulled him onto his knee and broke free. He got the strap off, but the man was at him again before Will could get a shot. They tumbled to the ground and the rifle skittered under the truck, out of reach.

The man rolled onto Will and started choking him. Will fumbled at his face to push him away with one hand while the other groped for the man’s pistol. With two muffled pops, the man slumped off him.

Will shot the man trying to get in the cab. Brain matter splattered on the window and he dropped.

Will found Hannibal crouched in the floorboards. The blood on his cheek wasn’t his.

“Are you alright?—”

Hannibal’s eyes widened and Will felt the thud of a knife in his back. He launched his elbow behind him, hitting bone with a crack. The knife stuck in him as he turned to fire. His first shot from the rebel’s pistol pelted uselessly in the ground when his attacker knocked down his hand.

Rage boiled up with thunderous force and Will swung. He hooked the man in the jaw, staggering him back. Will stared down the barrel, centered between the man’s eyes. The man's nose was broken and bleeding. He smeared it, then froze at the sight of the gun.

Will saw distorted animal instinct, starved and blind savagery—justified violence. To what end?

There was no ‘why’ in the man’s eyes.

There was no design.

Will squeezed and the man flinched his head to the side. The hammer fell with a hollow click.

The dead rebel’s gun had only held four bullets.

The man barreled Will into the open door of the truck. Will cried out when the knife in his back dug deeper. The rebel stumbled over his dead comrade in his effort and gave Will time to flick open his own knife. He slashed, catching the man’s cheek in his retreat.

Will launched into him, rapidly stabbing the short blade into the man’s side as many times as he could. In an attempt to retrieve his weapon, the man punched at Will’s back, aiming for the knife wound. Will groaned and his vision spotted with white. The man swatted at the handle sticking out of Will’s coat, almost grabbing it, but the bite of Will’s little blade sent him staggering—shrinking like a slug in salt.

Will gripped the protruding handle as if to stop it from wriggling. He knew better than to pull it out.

A hunger was clawing up his throat, woefully unsatisfied. He swallowed and stretched his neck to fight it. Things would never end at this rate. The rebel’s deliberations wouldn’t stop puttering in Will’s mind: wanting the truck, wanting the knife, wanting to run. Indecisive. Panicked.

The dark urge that gnawed at Will had an answer. Two birds, one stone.

At the next wave of radiating pain, Will let his eyes flutter shut and his hand went slack. He swayed as his weapon dropped into the snow.

He flexed his now empty hand and let just the right amount of shock to play on his face.

In that half second when the rebel saw his chance, Will felt a rush.

The rebel careened forward for the knife in the snow.

With heady strength, Will clamped down on the back of the man’s neck and shoved him face first into the ground. Will threw the man onto his back, and landed heavily on him. Freed from the dark, he drew back his bare fists. Will pounded into the man’s face. Over and over. Will's limbs were loose, thrumming with a rising elation.

Each punch was harder, but not faster. He was patient. He savored.

In a final act, Will took the pulpy face in his hands and gripped the skull. With unhurried contortion, he turned the head until the neck snapped and went slack.

Metal clicked at the crown of his head and Will jolted to the side.

The shot deafened him and gunpowder seared his cheek. At a glance, he recognized his own rifle. Retrieved from under the truck.

He locked on the man he had shot twice and left for dead while, at the edge of his vision, pale and slender fingers plucked his knife from the snow.

Will rolled onto his back in time to see Hannibal leap through the air.

The boy grappled around the rebel’s neck and tangled legs around his waist. He plunged Will's knife into the man’s neck and dragged through flesh. The spray fanned in Will’s vision like a blooming firework and blanketed across him.

The rifle dropped from the dead man’s hands as he collapsed in a heap. Hannibal landed on his feet. His hand and sleeve were stained red.

From the ground, Will instantly grabbed his knife by the blade and pulled it gently from in the boy’s hand. He brought Hannibal to the truck and helped him to sit in the floorboards. The boy did not stop watching him. He seldom blinked, if at all.

Will could not let himself think. He could not let himself get lost.

He could barely hear himself speak from the ringing in his ears, “Stay down.”

Just when he meant to leave, Will took in the crouching ghost in the cabin floor. The boy’s red sleeve was wrapped around his knees to make himself small.

He was not cowering. His eyes were bright and alive.

He was not prey.

Will squeezed the knife in his hand before extending it to the boy. Hannibal took it without urgency and their hands lingered in the exchange.

Will shut the door, then he snatched his rifle from the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... Remember when I said Hannibal might have turned out better if he met Will when he was younger? I... think I was wrong. But I'm not mad about it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments are so sweet! I'm so happy you all are enjoying this. I'm having a great time.

Will sat the boy down by the dwindling fire and molten embers churned behind Hannibal’s thin frame. The promise of morning was a murky blue rising from the depths of the trees.

Will’s frigid fingers could not find their grip as he tried to clear Hannibal of blood. The red would not be expunged from the boy’s hand.

His own knuckles were split open. The skin was frayed where he had struck the dead man’s teeth. In his labor to clean Hannibal, one of the cuts reopened and trickled.

Hannibal stopped him and cradled Will’s hands in his. He took the cloth and poured fresh water on it. He dabbed at the wounds with meticulous precision and turned his hand over, examining the cuts in Will’s palms made by his fingernails from gripping his fists. Hannibal traced them first with a tight look in his eye. Then he cleaned them as well. He took the swab of iodine Will had at the ready and sanitized each abrasion, painting them with saturated yellow.

The discoloration of iodine didn’t please the boy. There was a sour set to his mouth. He hesitated to color over the bite on Will’s hand. The crescent was still raised, the red puffiness at the edges hinted at infection, but Will was out of danger. It would heal into a deep pink. It would eventually scar, pale and jagged white.

In time, it would fade to nothing.

Will could see this process ravel and unravel, starting at its abrupt and violent creation then forward to its prolonged but inevitable departure.

By the furrow in his brow, he wondered if Hannibal was imagining the same progression.

This too would fade, was all he could think.

Hannibal squeezed his hands painfully. Will meet the boy’s critical glare and knew he was being scolded for retreating inside.

Will tried to smile, apologizing, “I’ve dragged you into my world.”

Hannibal opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. It was the first time Will had seen him try. He gripped where the book was hiding in his coat, at a loss. There were soldiers moving all around them, too many eyes.

Surrendering to this, Hannibal bandaged Will’s hands without further delay.

“Heard you got stabbed again.”

Approaching was Beverly Katz. Her black hair was tied and tucked out of her face. There was no field hospital for the colonel to send his wounded to, only the team of medics he had procured for their mission. While the battlefield surgeon had died long ago, his nurse had been more than capable of taking up the mantle.

Katz had a smart and penetrating sparkle in her stare. Will fascinated her and she didn’t bother to hide it.

She put a pot on the fire to boil the used wrappings she was collecting.

“Will?”

Realizing he was expected to respond, Will nodded with the jerk of his head.

“Social as always. Is he injured?”

Katz was apprehensive about the child. She had been since the beginning. All the same, she stared at the blood on Hannibal’s sleeve.

“It’s not his.”

She didn’t have time to pry. When she saw the knife handle in Will’s back, she smiled.

“You left it in this time. Thanks for that. Can I cut the coat?” Will fervently shook his head and she sighed, “Fine.”

She saw right away that the knife was being held in place by the layers of clothes, not by how deeply it was embedded in Will. The edges bristled with the stiffness of frostbite when she disturbed the metal.

Hannibal walked around to observe. Will could only imagine the intrigue that would spark for Katz. She was always looking for friends to share in her morbid curiosities.

She warned Will before pulling out the knife.

“You’re lucky. Any deeper and you might have lost a kidney.” She spoke to Hannibal at Will’s back, “Hold this.”

Getting stitched up wasn’t new. Will breathed into it and let himself drift. Katz muttered guidance to Hannibal as he watched her work. Will's skin was numb with cold and all the felt was the tug as she sewed the wound shut.

He was torn from the depths of his thoughts.

“Will!”

He turned to see Hannibal holding the knife from Will’s back. He had pressed his thumb to the blade until it split. Blood dripped freely into the snow.

Will grabbed the boy’s wrist and crushed it until he released the knife.

Hannibal’s eyes were glassy, vision lost. Will put himself into Hannibal’s line of sight and pet his cheek with no response. It wasn’t the knife or Will’s wound—not something Hannibal was seeing or feeling, those senses were locked.

Will took a deep breath. The smell of the camp was familiar. Winter’s crisp air. Nothing out of the ordinary—the campfire sent a sweet waft of burning birch.

Then Will heard the roiling water slapping against the sides of Katz's pot, spattering and sizzling in the fire.

He caged the boy’s ears with his palms as he ordered Katz, “The pot—take the pot off.”

He pulled Hannibal closer and waited. The water stilled. The shock left Hannibal the same way his dreams did: at the sight of Will.

Only then did Will remove his hands.

Katz examined Hannibal's injured thumb with a tired hiss.

“Is he alright?”

She grimaced, “It’ll need stitches.”

He took Hannibal’s hand from her and pressed against the wound to stop the bleeding.

“I can do it. I don’t want to keep you.”

She smirked at him, “Thanks.”

He kept his hand tight on Hannibal’s finger even when he sat down again so Katz could resume work on his back. He was grateful for her company, but he wanted Katz gone. Hannibal wouldn’t speak with him as long as she stayed. The boy stared at him blankly, still lost in the haunted forest of his mind.

The truck fired up across the camp.

“Are they still going to Kaunas?”

“No choice, we’re almost out of rations. What little ammunition we had was stolen. Most of my supplies too.”

At least they didn’t steal the truck. Will had made sure of that.

“Did they take any uniforms?”

Katz finished patching him up and pounded on his shoulder as she stood, “Nope. Apparently they weren’t worth it.”

She grabbed the pot, then stopped. She jerked her chin at Will to follow her.

Reluctant, he stepped away from Hannibal.

“You need to be careful, Will. I’ve seen a lot of kids like him.” She gave a grim shake of the head. “As he recovers, he’ll become more attached to you than you can imagine. So will you.”

She gone before Will could say anything else.

Inevitability lingered in the air around him.

Two of the Brits emerged from the back of the truck dressed in Soviet uniforms while others from the platoon double checked the cabin for anything the officials in Kaunas might find suspicious. They had all the appropriate paperwork. As far as the Kaunas officials knew, they were a patrol team keeping an eye on the roads to Vilnius and had come for their regular supplies.

The truck pulled off.

Finally, Will cleaned and stitched Hannibal’s wound.

When he was done, he asked at the ground, “Who is Mischa?”

The boy did not answer. He was stiff with the same discomfort he had when Zeller showed the photo of his nephew.

Will chewed his lip.

“Your sister?”

The boy did not move but the sinking behind his eyes was answer enough for Will.

He glanced at the fire, hearing the echoes of boiling water. That first night when Will had offered food, what was it that offended him? What was it that the boy still couldn't stomach?

The dark entity spoke through Will.

“Did they eat her, Hannibal?”

The chasm the boy carried cracked opened with a force, but it wasn’t filled with helplessness. All Will could feel was rage.

A righteous and insatiable rage.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another! Hahaha it's so easy to post chapters when they're only 1000 words. I'm used to 50 page behemoths. 1000 words? Pshhh, what?

The platoon treated their injured and cleared bodies from the camp.

They had to strip their fellow soldiers of any indication they were part of the US Army. There was no public record of their presence in the Baltic States. There could never be.

Tags were collected for families, but nothing else. American uniforms and personal items were burned after nightfall when the smoke was less likely to be noticed.

The corpses were stiff with death and cold. Will had to cut the clothes off them.

The living platoon stripped as well and replaced their clothes with what they could salvage from the Lithuanian scavengers. There were a few Soviet deserters among them still wearing uniforms. This was a victory, almost worth the loss of life. At least Will was certain Lieutenant Colonel Crawford would think so.

The Soviet uniforms were cleaned thoroughly and patched until they looked new again. They stored the best ones, distributing the rest.

Hannibal kept busy piling the clothes that were to be burned. Will stopped him so they could lunch. He heard the truck return.

The Brits came back from Kaunas with news and it did not take long for the colonel to find Will.

“Sergeant Graham, a word?”

Will knew that tone. It made his stomach drop. He stood and met the colonel on his approach.

“There’s a group of POWs from Warsaw being held in Kaunas. Mostly Russian, but we think there are a few Polish officers—”

“No, Jack. No. I can’t.”

“We don’t know how long they’ll be held before they’re executed, we have to move tonight.”

“I’m done. You said I was done. You can do it without me.”

“Really? The last three assignments we had, we didn’t lose a single man. That was you. You did that. ”

Will snapped, fringing on hysteria, “ _No._ ”

That gave the colonel pause.

It wasn’t as if the colonel could drag him there. If Will wanted to stop, he could. If he wanted to die where he stood, he could.

Will attempted to sound firm, “I-I won’t do it. The mission is over.”

The colonel looked Will up and down, who was practically stinking with trepidation.

“I know what happens when you don’t go. And so do you.” He added without an ounce of sympathy, “No one is asking you to do this alone.”

Will laughed bitterly, “I am alone.”

The colonel glanced around at the camp. Will wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he landed on the boy.

“He would make good cover. You could pass as a civilian.”

Will lurched forward, gripping the colonel’s arm. The colonel returned the act with a dispassionate glare.

“When you go back home, what will haunt you when you look back on this moment? Will it be what you’ve done? Or will it be what you didn’t do.” His eyes were pits of determination, pitiless and unassailable. “If you turn away now, you’ll look back and know there was killing going on that you could have prevented. It will sour home for you forever.”

Will blinked, releasing the colonel.

Crawford continued, “After this, you go home. You’ll go back to your life and you’ll know you saved lives. As many as you could.”

Will’s head dropped heavy in his hand. His forehead burned against his skin.

His voice was almost too weak to be heard.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Leave the boy out of it.”

—

He went to Beverly Katz before Hannibal. He made her promise to care for the boy if he didn’t return. He told her about Hannibal’s family in France. He made her promise.

He could already see himself going. Jack’s mission unfolded in his mind, clear as the path to where Hannibal waited by the fire. Anticipation churned in his gut.

When he met the boy, he knelt in front of him. The words wouldn’t come.

The boy took out the book instead, disregarding the risk of being seen.

_Are you alright, Will?_

He hadn’t seen his own name written in Hannibal’s hand before. It was oddly grounding. He leaned closer to Hannibal, concealing the book from outside eyes. They stared at the pages together.

If Will didn’t say anything, his last words to Hannibal would have been about his sister’s death. Her murder.

“I-I’m sorry about before, Hannibal. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 _You didn’t._ The pencil pressed to the page. _What’s troubling you?_

Will gave a shaky laugh. He shouldn’t let himself be comforted by a child.

_Is it the man you killed?_

Will gripped his knee and the laughter died.

_What were you thinking about when you killed him?_

Will’s head rang with the gunshot in his ear. It pulsed with echoes of the elation he felt taking the life of another man with his bare hands.

When Will didn’t answer, the boy offered instead.

_I thought of God._

Will looked at him then. There it was—that intrigued reverence in Hannibal’s eyes. His face twisted with anguish, and he folded under Hannibal’s intense scrutiny.

The night played out in his mind, even as he resisted it. He watched an angel of death leap from the ground. Pale, purpled fingers gripped around Will's knife. The wash of blood fell over him like a blanket. The image would not leave him.

_Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time._

Overwhelmed, Will’s head dropped onto the boy’s shoulder. Hannibal wrapped his hand around the back of Will’s neck. The cold, cold touch seeped into him.

They stayed like that, in an awkward embrace.

“Do you know who killed Mischa?”

With his free hand, Hannibal answered.

_No. But I will._

Will nodded into the boy’s shoulder, then forced himself to stand.

“Goodbye, Hannibal.”

He had the absurd feeling that Hannibal followed after him as he went. He checked and the boy was sat by the fire. The book had been stowed, but Hannibal’s hands were folded in his lap as if he was still holding something.

What part of himself had Will given to the boy to watch over? What did the boy cradle in his fingers as Will walked away? Away to Jack. Away into the dark.

What had Will saved from the woods?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny Hannibal is... just the best.  
> See you soon!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's all say hello to Dark Will!  
> It makes me a little nervous to have a chapter composed exclusively of description. I myself use dialogue as a guide when I'm reading. I can only hope this section is broken up in an engaging way!

Will slipped into the patrol rotation in Kaunas without effort, sporting one of the recovered Russian uniforms. He had done this dozens of times before, in dozens of cities.

There was something in a patrolman's walk, a bored familiarity. The background of the city was static and did not need review. A practice patrolman's eyes didn’t wander. If you were twitchy, you stood out. At this hour, anyone that wasn’t in uniform wasn’t supposed to be there. Civilians that broke curfew would be shot on sight.

From a rough map of the city, Will and his fire squad had devised an escape path for the POWs. His men would wait at the outskirts to meet them. They learned early that they were less likely to be noticed when operating with smaller numbers.

Crawford’s merit showed in blunt strikes. He was a colonel for a reason, and he commanded his men well. They had taken down whole camps of Nazi troops to free marching POWs. But more often than not, their assignments required more finesse.

The first time Will was sent on a rescue, he had no idea what to expect. It was a similar to Kaunas. He was instructed to sneak prisoners out of an occupied city. However, they hadn’t done enough surveillance. Will didn’t have an understanding of the jailers, or what brought them to behave as they did. He had yet to grasp what war had done to these soldiers, to these creatures that were once men. When the colonel's men went in, they had all the finesse of a hammer smashing a lock open. Gunfire and unnecessary sacrifice. It was sloppy. Inelegant.

Will adapted in time. He became a man who could slip into a group of drinking soldiers and join in their merriment only to slit their throats in the night. He found that was a common entry point. Most soldiers would do anything to escape their misdeeds, even if for only a night.

As he started to get consistent results, the colonel deferred to Will's observations and insight. Jack didn't care how it was done, and he was more than willing to turn a blind eye when Will went too far.

Will rolled the butt of a cigarette between his teeth when he approached the prison. As was often the case, there was so little care for the half-starved prisoners that the place was barely guarded. He kept his gaze on the ground. He wasn't sure how he would play it—he rarely did. But it would have been absurd to come as a civilian—it never would have worked. The memory of Jack Crawford’s not so subtle threat to Hannibal's safety sparked a flare of resentment that took Will by surprise. He flickered his attention to the guard, hoping the man hadn't seen it.

To his relief, The guard eyed him with curiosity and not suspicion. There was a lazy cruelty to him that mocked Will's poorly disguised anger.

Will's strategy clicked into place and his lip twitched.

He bounded up the stone steps and let the man's affect wash over him. With a roll of his shoulders, he became someone who luxuriated in the agony of others. Knowing how closely he was being watched, Will maintained eye contact and took a long, final drag off his cigarette. He flicked the damp end to the ground, trailed by ash, and snuffed the ember with his boot. His face twisted in a sadistic smile and the guard returned it with an amused chuckle. Without a word, Will produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes. The guard took his bribe and they both walked inside.

The guard guided him down the dark stone halls. The exposed bulbs hanging at the wall barely illuminated their path. They flickered in the edges of Will's vision, not unlike his nightmares. It made his skin crawl. 

The guard stepped down into an open doorway and presented the cells with a smile.

Only two of the large cells were occupied by prisoners. A little over a dozen skeleton men crowded in the corners, huddling for warmth and comfort. Their cheeks were hollow and their skin hung loosely on their bones. Their eyes were open, but glazed. Most showed some signs of abuse, bruises and dints in paper flesh. Perhaps a few of them were already dead, Will could not tell.

He grit his teeth and looked over the prisoners trying to determine which was the strongest of them. One of them had to have some fire left. Will didn’t have time to hesitate or the guard might doubt his nerve. He approached the first cell and the guard unlocked it for him.

A rebellious gaze glowed from the pile and Will had his target. Will grabbed the thin man by the collar and dragged him to the empty center of the cell.

The guard walked off to lean in the doorway and produced a cigarette. He lit it and watched Will over the ember.

Will threw the man into the bars, clattering the rest of the prisoners awake. The man grunted. Despite his ire, he was still too weak to fight back.

Will waited until he crawled away from the bars before lifting him by the collar and punching him down again. The man whimpered into the stone floor.

The guard marveled at Will as if his own shadow had separated from him and was acting of its own volition.

Will watched with bubbling elation as the simpering man dragged himself on the floor to escape. Will pulled him back by his leg and struck him again.

The guard snickered from the doorway and was suddenly pinned by Will's impassioned venom. The guard held up his hands in surrender, still smiling. He understood Will's need for privacy. He hooked the keys to the cells on the wall and said something in Russian Will didn't understand. Then the man turned down the hall and left Will to his devices.

Will listened intently for the footsteps to fade. The hall was too long, the man could still hear. With a vicious growl, Will kicked the prisoner’s stomach, who expelled a miserable grunt. Will took up the limp arm and twisted the man’s fingers to produce a half strangled scream. The sound was convincing, but the damage was minimal in comparison.

The rest of the prisoners in the cell were watching in horror now. Wide awake.

Good.

Will pinched the fingers hard enough to threaten breaking them while he waited. The POW continued to cry and struggle, grabbing feebly at Will’s pants.

It was unlikely that sounds from the cell would travel all the way to the front of the building. Even if they did, the guard was accustomed to tuning them out. When he was certain of this, Will released the man’s hand.

Will stepped out of the persona he had adopted and spoke quickly to the prisoners in broken Russian to get up. He helped his victim to his feet and walked him out of the cell. He leaned the injured man against the wall while he opened the other cell.

The prisoners glanced at one another in confusion. To convince them, Will adopted a reassuring guise beyond his own natural capabilities and smiled kindly. Against all instinct, they relaxed. The promise of freedom was too enticing to be overridden. Will pulled the dazed men to their feet with a gentle hand. Some were too weak to walk and were strung between the others so they could be dragged to safety.

He checked the halls before guiding them through. It was fortunate for them that most of the lights were out already, and the older buildings were uniform enough that Will could predict the layout in their escape. He kept his knife in his pocket and moved like a ghost in the black halls. Every fiber of him blended with the scene. He belonged here.

The first guard Will ran across died with a blade in his throat before he could make a sound. Will held on until the last flutter of life left him. He let the body sink silently to the ground and leaned the guard against the wall, as if he were simply asleep.

The POWs peered at him from a distance. Their wet eyes reflected fear in the dark.

Two other guards died with similar disregard. Means to an end. It did not stir the hunger that was biding its time at the periphery of Will's thoughts. The dark reflection sat just out of sight and sent a chill through Will when he tried to chase it with his eyes.

Through the abandoned kitchen they came to the back door. He checked outside to ensure no one would spot them. When he closed it again, he hesitated on the handle.

He could walk away now. He could go with the prisoners and it would all be over.

With a feverish rush in his head, he knew this was a lie. It wasn't over. Will had to finish what he started.

The monster that waited so patiently knew he wasn’t done yet.

Will gave one of them his gun and told them not to use it unless absolutely necessary. He wouldn’t need it where he was going.

Just before he opened the door, he let himself linger on the hoard of filthy men. They huddled together still, now corralled within a self-imposed cage rather than a literal one. Their eyes were a cluster of shining pebbles, indistinguishable from one another and all sharing the same burning rancor. The animal voices in them raged at Will. Hissing, and cowering from what they could not comprehend.

Will looked into those terrified eyes to remind himself of what he was.

He handed over the map and showed them where the platoon was waiting. They took it and eagerly left him behind.

Once they were safely out, Will turned back into the dark.


	9. Chapter 9

Will dragged his feet at the rear of the procession of POWs. He kept his bloodied hands in his pockets. He hadn’t meant to get the uniform so… Jack would be angry when he saw it.

Zeller and the Price twins were at the front supporting the weakest soldiers to set the pace of their march. The night was dead. No one from Kaunas would come looking for them.

Long ago Will would have offered to help the POWs, but he knew better now. He had seen enough disdain and terror in those he had saved to never ask again.

Thoughts wandered back to the prison.

Will had taken his time walking through the final hallway toward the entrance. The POWs were safely away. There was one loose end to take care of, then they would all be free.

The masks had slipped away one by one in each step. He was not the Russian patrolman who sought to satisfy his bottled-up need for violence. Or the desperate rescuer—full of patient smiles and reassurances. He was not James Crawford who turned away from good and evil in favor of justice. He was not the reluctant and tattered soldier doing what he had been ordered to do.

Where did that leave him?

Who was he now?

There was enough guilt swimming in him that it was easy to put on a sorry look when he met the guard. Will offered the keys to the cell, showing the trace of blood on his hands.

The guard scowled and brushed past him to see for himself. If Will had gone too far and killed one of the prisoners, the guard would be the one punished for it.

His breath was rasping in his ears while his heart thudded steadily. The plucking of a heavy string. Flooding him with anticipation.

Will stalked the man while testing his thumb on the edge of the blade hiding in his pocket. He pressed it almost to the point of breaking the skin.

_Killing must feel good to God too._

As soon as the man’s eyes widened on the empty cells, Will was on him.

The guard’s screams, like those of the prisoners, were disregarded by anyone who heard them.

Will beat him into the bars, and broke his leg with a swift kick. The man fell and begged from the ground. Will sheared the clothes from him like he had done with the frozen corpses. He carved strips of flesh, scrawny as the guard was, and slapped them on the ground. The knife was small. Will had to slash over and over, lifting the meat from the bone. He had to take his time.

Slabs of meat. There was so much. More than you could ever get from a child. So much more. Will didn’t notice the tears until they blurred his vision.

He took and took even after the man stopped moving.

When he was done, Will stood over the bounty. A dark, lush mound. He stretched his hand over it, like one would to capture the moon from the sky. The scaring bite on his hand was glossy with red.

Here you are. There’s plenty.

Come eat.

“Will.”

The colonel stood before him.

“Jack,” he said with a shaky breath. He retracted his hand, realizing he had actually extended it ahead of him.

The platoon embraced the rescued men. Katz was among them, assessing the most injured. The man Will had beaten was carried immediately to the bed of the truck.

“How’d it go?”

Sweat trickled down his temple. Will nodded as he usually did with Jack, but he did not feel present. He could easily still be standing over the butchered guard.

“Fifteen men, Will. You did that. You saved fifteen men.” He pat Will’s shoulder, “You did good.”

If the colonel was miffed by the damaged uniform, he didn’t say anything. He had Will turn it over before he was dismissed. Jack wrapped a coat around Will’s shoulders and pushed him into motion. He told him to rest. That Will deserved it.

What the prisoners had witnessed spread quickly through the camp. The wary eyes of his fellow soldiers followed Will as he walked. His breathing was loud to him, raspy and panting.

They only knew he had beaten the POW. If they had any idea of what he had done to the guard in the prison—if word somehow spread from Kaunas… The thought put Will’s stomach in knots. Will had never done anything like that before. He had never killed like that.

The sound of flesh slapping the stone was sharp in his mind. He took in a startled breath.

His skin felt tight, like something was bursting through. His head throbbed.

Something touched his hand. A canteen.

Hannibal stared up at him. He pushed the water at Will and the sloshing awoke his thirst. He drained the container greedily, water dribbling down his chin.

Will was twinging and raw like an exposed nerve. The boy guided him to sit by the fire and placed a cold hand on Will’s forehead. It grounded him. Hannibal left him only briefly and returned with more water.

When Will looked at the fire there was bony and disfigured pile lying before it, cast in shadow. He heard the sizzling of cooking meat.

What was left of the guard stared up at Will. Light reflected in his dead eyes.

The woods spun around him and Will dropped his head between his knees. The sounds were closing in around him. Whispering, sizzling, the wet knife slipping through flesh. Will could feel himself slipping, shaking apart.

Hannibal grabbed Will’s face and brought it up. Those dark eyes pierced into him, unflinching and unafraid, digging for what Will was trying so desperately to squelch. The whispering and the cracking of the fire faded into the distant background while Will’s hallucination solidified.

The dark prison cell draped around them, as a curtain falls. Hannibal did not leave him. He stayed, caging Will’s face. He held Will together where he was meant to shatter.

They knelt before the guard’s body and what had been taken—reclaimed. Will took deep breaths through the panic until he steadied. His seized muscles untangled and his head sagged into the boy’s hands.

With Hannibal before him, Will regained what he had found in the cell. He looked at the offering of flesh and a tear chilled his cheek at the beauty of it.

Will was once more overcome by a quiet sense of power.

The hallucination faded, but the feeling stayed.

The boy smiled at him with brimming pride.

Will’s shackles were shaking loose. He was growing and changing—or perhaps emerging as what he had ever been. He wondered if Hannibal could see it too.

The boy put his hand flat against Will’s cheek over the gunpowder burn that had not faded. His other hand pet the back of his neck, like one would to soothe a horse. Will wanted to laugh.

Then Hannibal bowed closer to Will’s turning ear.

Breath and a tenor sound, rusty with disuse, was molded into a familiar shape.

“Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favorite sections to write. Will is an excellent unreliable narrator. I really hope I get to exploit that in the future!  
> In other news, I have completed writing for this installation and am starting the sequel! Who knew this little one-shot would evolve into a full-blown story! I certainly didn't.


	10. Chapter 10

The POWs were dangerously malnourished, but the truck couldn’t carry them all. The stronger ones were forced to walk with the platoon in shifts.

The colonel was well practiced at smuggling men out of occupied territory, whether by boat or by train. The port city of Klaipeda was the perfect place to do it. While the Brits were waiting for their supplies in Kaunas, they made contact with Allies planted in the port city and confirmed what the colonel had hoped for. Their extraction from Lithuania had been secured.

All that was left was to survive the final march.

The morning after his mission in Kaunas, Will kept to the edges of the platoon but their eyes followed his every move. He sloshed through the men’s disdain and horror like sludge at his feet. He was sluggish from the onslaught.

Only hours had passed, but the pendulum had swung harshly away from that feeling of power and acceptance he had found through Hannibal. Now he was forced to see over and over that he was _of the world_. And the world was watching. 

Their words, in Russian and English, filled his head with unbearable noise.

“He looks so harmless now, but—”

“What happened?”

“I’ve seen it before. It gets worse every time.”

“—the blood in his eyes—”

“What else would you expect from the colonel’s mad dog?”

“You should have seen him beating that man. Like he was enjoying it.”

He laughed bitterly himself. If only they had seen what he’d done to the guard.

“He’s not a real sergeant.”

“That’s right! He was discharged—”

“—medical discharge, they said he was—”

Unstable. Unfit for duty.

Or, in Jack’s eyes, a unique case. A valuable asset.

Will knew he was disposable, even if the colonel kept him like a prized pony. Crawford wouldn’t let him go so long as he was useful. Will wasn’t fooling himself—once this was over it would be up to the colonel if he went home or to an institution.

“What about the boy?” asked one of the POWs.

Will lurched back into himself and his eyes flickered to Hannibal. The boy walked beside him with a lack of expression, as if he couldn’t hear them.

“We found him in the woods near Vilnius. Hasn’t said a word—”

“Did you get a look at Graham’s hands? The kid nearly bit off his thumb.”

He had expected this. It was his fault for keeping the boy close.

“For a mute, he can scream well enough at night.”

The weight of guilt threatened to crush Will into the snowy turf.

“Did you see him after the looters? He was practically rabid.”

“There was blood on him, you don’t think—?”

A chilling fury flooded in and Will gripped fists at his side. In their eyes, Will’s madness was something contagious.

Hannibal held Will’s wrist, out of sight of the platoon.

The boy did not look at him, but kept his eyes ahead. Will looked closely at him and realized that Hannibal wasn’t ignoring their words, no no no. If anything he was cataloguing them. He turned them over in his head with passing curiosity.

With that touch alone, Hannibal tore Will from their world. The air of otherness draped over his shoulders once more. Will’s vision slowed and he watched the footfalls of the soldiers, crunching in the frozen grass. He watched their mouths move, their eyes flicker toward them.

Will had the distinct feeling that he was watching a strange play unfold. The soldiers’ motivations were apparent in their faces, each step of logic was painfully predictable. Will’s curse of insight laid out their plainness, but it did not consume him.

At the squeeze of Hannibal’s hand, Will was disarmed of his rage.

The words of other men flitted about them. They were animals, acting out of instinct. Things to be pitied and not resented. Will closed his eyes for a step and breathed deeply. He found himself again.

Will drove the buzzing words away, like winter sends flies to their quiet death. Out of sight and mind.

—

It was days before the POWs confronted him.

Will was pulled from his spot by the fire and thrown to the hard ground. One stood over him, speaking in English. Anger lathered his words with a heavy accent.

“You beat Marat with a smile on your face—”

Another joined in, “Sick bastard!”

Will didn’t answer. They didn’t want his apologies.

He heaved a breath before it was kicked out of him. Then again. The blows were weak. They couldn’t really hurt him. They weren’t strong enough. They booted at him, shoving him into the frozen dirt, grabbing and dragging him when he curled up to protect his head.

Will would retreat into his mind, as he always did, and wait for it to be over.

Zeller and Jimmy appeared to talk the men down, but kept out of the way. They made no solid moves to intervene. Crawford watched from across the camp with arms crossed over his chest.

Their distance didn’t offend him. It was a simple thing to accept their actions—the colonel, his team, the POWs—as if Will could feel the bumps and ridges of the through-lines of their lives. This was natural for them. Will could see it and, because of that, they could not touch him.

Then Will felt a chill, a set of eyes that pierced through the rest.

He swallowed dryly at the sight of Hannibal seated at the fire.

The firelight reflected redly in his severe gaze. He watched every blow to Will’s body, locking them into memory.

Will shoved the weakened men back to scramble to his feet. He cast off the next strike to his face without effort.

The group of POWs shrank back, ready for a fight.

Will straightened to his full height and his presence swelled. His hands were empty and relaxed at his side. Will didn’t need to arm himself. Apprehension rippled through the camp.

Will didn’t need a weapon to kill them and they all knew it.

“That’s enough.” The colonel stepped from the crowd. “Sergeant Graham was acting under my orders. If you have any complaints about that, you bring them to me.”

They dispersed. The colonel lingered, waiting for a show of defiance from the POWs. When there was none, he pivoted without another glance at Will.

Only then did Zeller and Jimmy approach.

Zeller brushed the snow and dirt from Will, “You alright?”

He nodded once.

Jimmy smiled tightly, patting his arm. They all sat and ate together in silence. No stories or memories came to cleanse their palates. Their guilt was comfort enough for Will. They might fear him, but they didn’t hate him.

When they finally went to sleep, Will waited for Hannibal to come to him. He did not. The boy stayed where he was across the fire as he had all through dinner. He stared at the POWs sleeping in the truck, expressionless. The cord Will had given him was wrapped tightly over his fingers.

The flames crackled between them. Sparks and embers lifted into the air to frame Hannibal’s shallow-buried wrath.

“Don’t hurt them. Don’t. It’s not worth it.”

Hannibal met Will with a bright and innocent smile.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized that was kind of an unfair cliffhanger! Here's the rest, lol.

Hannibal coiled the cord carefully and dropped it onto his cot. He stood and stalked around the fire, weaving through Zeller and the Price brothers’ sleeping forms. His steps were noiseless and the men did not stir.

He took his place before Will, book in hand. He tried to hide his disappointment when Hannibal didn’t speak again.

_Why didn’t you fight back?_

“Do you?”

Without hesitation, _Yes._

Will laughed a little. “I’m sure you do.” Hannibal was slight and fast. The size of his opponent wouldn’t make much difference. If anything, it would lead them to the dangerous assumption that they had an advantage. “It’s the bullies who get hurt, right?”

Hannibal’s smile said enough.

“I don’t fight back because—”

The breaking of bone snapped in his mind. The slap of meat. The path of his knife through flesh. Methodical and indulgent.

“…because they didn’t deserve my… anger.” He knew Hannibal wouldn’t ignore his careful selection of words.

 _Even before they were violent toward you, they spoke ill of you._ Hannibal paused, peering at the sleeping squad. _Those who didn’t made no effort to stop them._

“And that’s the same as committing the crime themselves?”

Hannibal glared at him, as if that were obvious.

_Your Jack didn’t have any intention of interfering. He would have allowed it to continue until those men were satisfied._

“I know.” The colonel had learned that if he interfered too soon it negatively affected moral. To Crawford, it was Will’s responsibility to obey the pecking order and roll over. The men needed to vent their disgust or it would fester in the platoon.

 _Why do you let them?_ Hannibal’s hand flew across the page as he wrote, _Do you think so little of yourself that you believe you should be punished?_

Will’s gut reaction was to say yes, but that wasn’t true anymore. He used to believe he deserved their resentment—he did.

As if sensing this, Hannibal slowly asked.

_Why did you stop them? What changed tonight?_

A great many things, Will wanted to say. He knit his hands, unable to settle on any other words. He scarcely recognized himself.

_What happened in Kaunas?_

“I… I beat one of the prisoners. It was… I didn’t enjoy it, not like they said I did.”

Even as he fumbled, Will knew there was no way to simplify his decision. It sounded false to do so—cheap. He couldn’t excuse himself from what he had done.

Hannibal put his hand on Will’s arm. His gentle request waited on the page.

_Tell me._

Will hesitated then. He and Hannibal stood on the edge of something. Will couldn’t convince himself to step back.

“There was a guard. He was… especially cruel. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to hurt their prisoners, to subdue them, but he was… He wasn’t just trying to break their spirits. He hurt them until they wanted death.”

_That’s what you did._

“No, no. I didn’t.” He nearly choked on his quick refusal. “I just had to make it seem that way. I had to make the guard think I was like him. Once he was gone, I could stop.”

_It wasn’t you who beat that man. It was the guard._

He couldn’t let himself think of it that way, even if it was true. It made him sound insane.

_What happened after?_

Will muttered tonelessly, “There were other soldiers in the building.”

_They didn’t matter to you. Their deaths were incidental._

Will automatically nodded. He felt like he was being sucked into the small book in the boy’s lap. Enraptured by lines and curves. He could imagine the voice behind them, feel it crawling inside his ear.

_Then you escaped with the prisoners?_

“N-no, I stayed.”

_What did you do?_

When Will didn’t answer, Hannibal filled the page.

_Once you convinced the guard with your performance, you guided the men through the prison. You killed what soldiers fell into your path without passion. This was according to plan. You were following what was expected of you._

_You hesitated when you were meant to part from the prisoners. They were to go ahead without you. That was the plan._

When Will didn't supply the rest of the story, he wrote again. Poisonous words.

_Why did you hesitate, Will?_

“I-I don’t know.”

 _I think you do_ , was his instant response. _You wanted to go with them. You could have left into the woods with them in that moment, but you had to stay._

Will’s eyes were frozen on the page. The petrification spread through him, inch by inch.

_You had forgotten someone, hadn’t you? You had yet to finish what you started._

He could feel the handle in his grip even now, stinging with cold.

_What did you do to the guard, Will?_

With the ghost of a whisper, he confessed. “I killed him.”

_You didn’t just kill him. You hurt him until he wanted death._

Will shook his fevered head, fighting to deny it.

_How did it feel?_

“It felt… just.”

_You sought retribution through the guard, but you refuse to do the same with these men who spit at you and beat you for doing what is natural to you. They call you mad and reduce you to something they can understand. Yet you don’t wish to show them the enormity of your vision?_

“My design…?” He had never said the words aloud. Even though they came with fluid ease on his tongue, the violence eked out of him. He didn’t need these men to see him for who he was, he knew that now. “No. No, I don’t.”

Hannibal’s grip on the pencil made the wood creak.

_You would deny what you are?_

He shook his head, “These men aren’t conscious of their decisions—they're acting out of their own instinct. And I wouldn’t punish them for that.”

_Their hands should be flayed. Their tongues should be plucked from them. They are not deserving of either._

It wasn’t funny, yet Will exhaled in a laugh. He had almost forgotten he was speaking with a child. Hannibal’s reckoning relied on a sinister scale that rivaled Dante’s, and his version of punishment required bloody and breathtaking symmetry to suit the crime. Only then would he be satisfied.

Then it all clicked into place. Will's eyes widened as the revelation dawned on him.

“I didn’t just kill the guard, Hannibal. I carved him up.” Hannibal’s eyes sparkled at the admission. “I’d never done it like that before, it… surprised me.” A woeful understatement.

_Did he deserve it?_

“No. He didn’t.”

Hannibal’s forehead creased in a frown, he searched Will’s eyes.

The words fell out of Will, discovering them as he spoke. “I wasn’t thinking about the guard when I killed him. He was… a canvas. He was convenient.”

When Will didn’t continue, Hannibal gripped his arm.

Finally Will said, “I took my pound of flesh and then some.”

The way Hannibal’s hand trembled almost made Will regret saying it. He shouldn’t be telling a child such things, but it felt wrong not to. It would be a lie of omission.

Hannibal recovered quickly, exploring the rationale.

_You reclaimed what was owed to the men he tortured and killed._

Will knew with shocking clarity that nothing could be further from the truth.

“I didn’t do it for them.”

_For you, then. For the pain you’ve endured at the hands of your command. For the perceived evils you’ve been forced to commit._

Will shook his head and tenderly watch the fire. It warmed him to his bones. He couldn’t help but smile.

Hannibal touched his face, forcing Will to return.

_Who is deserving of your anger, Will?_

Will stared at his scarred hands and took a deep breath. He was afraid of the answer—afraid of himself.

More so, he was afraid of the simple and overpowering joy that came with it.

Then he ruffled to boy’s head, “Enough talk. Go to sleep, Hannibal.”

The boy fussed, fixing the disrupted shoots of hair. He stood, but didn’t walk away to his bed. Frustration seeped past his mature mask, and his eyes darted. He tore apart his thoughts but was left unsatisfied.

Will shimmied down in his cot and watched it all play out. It was comically apparent that Hannibal wasn’t used to facing questions he couldn’t answer. He was very young still—spoiled and beset by disappointment.

It made Will a little sorry to see it.

Will pat his cot to draw Hannibal’s attention, then lifted the blanket.

Hannibal hesitated, expression vacant, before kneeling down and scuttling close to Will under the covers.

Their winter gear was bulky, but Will could still feel Hannibal’s warmth through it. He draped an arm over the boy and rested his chin on his head.

Hannibal burrowed into him and took a deep breath.

There was the unwashed staleness of Will’s uniform, flakes of old blood and filth, iodine’s faint sting, salt of sweat dried on his skin, but—more than that—Hannibal would remember the scent that was uniquely Will’s lying faintly underneath. It was the mist that rises from the wild grass on a cool spring morning. It was moss covered bark, pine needles underfoot. It was the flat and reliable scent of voluntary solitude.

Will winced in his smile, and his Adam’s apple bobbed against the boy’s head.

“Goodnight, Hannibal.”

They tangled together in sleep, close enough to chase their nightmares away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more for the road!

Hannibal was strangely quiet in the days that followed. When he wasn’t watching Will’s every move, he reviewed boat knots on their march to Klaipeda. He was working on one Will didn’t recognize.

Will knew from experience that experimenting with knots was an easy way to tangle them beyond repair.

He laughed at the boy, “What did you do to it?”

Hannibal sneered, then resumed adding layers to his sculpture of cord.

Will could see the thoughts churning in his young head, but Hannibal did not share them. Even at night, when it was safe for him to take out the logbook and speak to Will, Hannibal maintained his silent rumination.

Despite Hannibal’s brooding, Will felt lighter than he had in years. Something had broken in him, and he couldn’t be sure of what it was exactly. Or if he should even bother trying to restore it. He was almost buoyant. He drifted close to Hannibal, unhindered by the wariness of his platoon, and spoke freely to him as they marched to Klaipeda.

He told Hannibal about his childhood in an effort to continue the boy’s education in sailing. He was younger than Hannibal when his father let him chart their course across the open Gulf to Key West. His father steered the boat under Will’s guidance and provided the time from his pocket watch when his son asked. Aside from that his father stayed silent for the entire journey, providing no guidance.

Will explained how sailors calculated longitude and latitude with almanacs and instruments that hadn’t changed in centuries. Will regretted not having the materials to try it themselves when he saw how Hannibal jotted the equations down.

At night, they laid down in Will’s cot and watched the stars. Will pointed out the constellations they could see and showed Hannibal Polaris. The stars would never just be specks of light, Will told the boy. They had names. They naturally oriented Will in the dark.

Will was 17 the last time he and his father sailed together, just before he joined the army. They intended to sail to Boston and back, but bad weather forced them to turn around.

They came home defeated. Will wanted to fix the boat and try again, but his father refused. He put his antique watch in Will’s hand and told his son to make him proud.

Hannibal’s broken notes came close to his ear.

“What happened?”

Will’s breath caught, delighted to hear him speak again.

He answered, “I left. I had been accepted into a program that trained officers. They tested us to see what branch of the Army we were best suited for.” That’s how the colonel found him, he later learned. “I didn’t complete the course.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t do well with stress tests.” Will smiled bitterly, “They conducted a psychological evaluation and found red flags.”

The boy quirked an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t that interesting. They detected instability.”

Hannibal knew Will wasn’t being honest, but he couldn’t put his doubts into words. Will was glad for it. He had had enough people fumbling around in his head. It was refreshing that this child didn’t have the knowledge necessary to diagnose him. Hannibal’s natural insight was disturbing enough.

“I never told my father.”

“You didn’t go home?”

He shook his head. “I stayed in Baltimore. I made a living fixing boat motors on the Chesapeake Bay. I used up my savings and bought a house.” Even now the thought of his little house standing out in the sea of trees brought him some peace. “I was happy there. I was thinking about applying for college…”

His voice creaked, “Then he found you. Jack.” The colonel’s name carried a particularly biting tone that Will strongly identified with.

He vividly remembered when Jack first showed up at his door, decorated in a uniform. He had a file on Will under his arm. He offered to reinstate him. He promised a scholarship after the war.

“He asked if the Army could borrow my imagination.”

It never sat well with Will to be reinstated like that. It still didn’t.

“I wanted a second chance. I wanted to prove myself.” He sagged into the ground. “I was young.”

He never wrote to his father in the end. When he left for Europe, Will wound his father’s watch one last time and locked it in a drawer.

“Do you wish you hadn’t come?”

The answer should have been yes. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Will.”

The boy’s tongue curled strangely around his name. He fixed Will in place with that red glinted stare.

“I have never met anyone like you. I doubt I ever will.”

Will chuckled, “I hope you never do again.”

Hannibal blinked like the shutter of a camera. Then he looked up and captured the night sky as if the constellations would guide him back to this moment.

He lingered on the question Will had left unanswered. It burned in him. Will didn’t know how to ease that discomfort. The meaning beneath his answer was vast and unknown, even to himself.

Each day brought them closer to Klaipeda, and inevitability grew heavily in the pit of Will’s stomach.

Time was running out, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

—

Will had gotten real paper from Zeller, and a new pencil. He kept it hidden in his pack and waited until nightfall.

“Do you know where your uncle lives in France?”

Hannibal stopped tying the ever growing knot in his hands.

“Essonne.”

The boy was not a stray that Will could keep. Will knew that. They would part at Klaipeda.

He had been repeating that to himself all day.

“If you,” Will took a deep breath, “If you write something, I could send it to him when we leave the country.”

The boy’s lip twitched in a smile.

That gutted Will more than a show of resentment.

He retrieved the paper from his bag and shuffled the sheets anxiously. “Even if you can’t go to him now, at least you can tell him you’re alright. He’ll know to come for you.”

Will knew what he wanted with every fiber of his being.

He wanted to walk away from his platoon with Hannibal in tow. He wanted to walk the boy through the war-torn countryside himself. He didn’t trust any other hands than his own, bloody and battered though they were.

He would to bring Hannibal to a better place and refuse to let him go until Will knew with certainty that he would be safe. Will’s soul would not be at peace with anything less.

Despite that stinging in his heart, he knew it was impossible. His rational mind told him over and over that he didn’t have a choice. It left a greasy and sour taste on his tongue. There was always a choice. What it came down to was what Will was willing to sacrifice to make it.

He would not sacrifice Hannibal. He would not put Hannibal at risk. Death waited for them in that future, whether it came from a bullet, starvation, or winter’s grip. They would never make it.

The boy would be safer if Will left him behind.

Will ground his heels into the frozen dirt and felt the rush of blood to his temples.

“I can’t take you to your family.”

The silence lingered.

Will breathed into it and admitted softly to the ground. “I want to. But I can’t.”

When Hannibal looked at him, there was a simplicity to his expression. A clarity.

He tucked the knot fondly into his pocket and stood up.

In the fever of Will’s mind, Hannibal stood on one side of the chasm he carried. It split the ground between them, delving deeper and deeper into the earth. The edges of it were a familiar landscape to Will. They were dear to him.

When Will stared down the barrel of his rifle at the boy in the snow, he felt it. On some level he knew the darkness in Hannibal mirrored his own. It did not make them unhinged or broken. It made them fathomless. The deeper he looked, the less Will understood.

This was not the boy he had met, nor was it the boy before the war. This was someone else. Something newly created.

Hannibal took the papers from Will, bringing him back to the present. He offered the logbook in exchange, with a true smile on his face.

It was Hannibal’s turn to reach for Will.

“Take me with you.”

There was no nativity in Hannibal’s stare—no tantrum or plea. It was not that Hannibal had refused to accept reality.

He simply held a patient certainty that his wish would come to be.

Will matched his smile, letting the warmth fill him to bursting. He took the book with a trembling hand.

“I will.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Let's wrap up this sucker. Two more to go!

There was water boiling close by. It sloshed within its container. Liquid hissed on a fire. The sounds echoed and multiplied on the stone walls of the bleak prison hallway. It gave Will the unnerving impression that he was within the pot and not yet aware he was the one boiling.

He headed for the archway at the end, to where the cells waited.

The moonlight cast long stripes on the ground and pulled him closer.

It wasn’t until he passed the threshold that he realized the strips of shadow were not from cell bars, but trees. They were black, spindling spires that stretched up into infinity—fingers reaching to God. Will searched for the hall of the prison behind him, but it was gone.

The edges of his vision were blurred. Unimportant. He was drawn into the glowing center of the clearing.

Squatting around an undulating fire was a small number of men. Were they men? The eyes that flitted in the dark were brimming with starved madness. Laughter and singing rang in the trees. They danced about the pot with demon smiles, licking their lips.

The leader of them snarled and swatted at the others when their grimy, greedy fingers became too eager for the awaiting prize. They went quiet. Their faces were warped—grotesque monsters with filthy teeth and carrion breath.

The leader revealed a silver knife and stuck it in the pot. He hooked their spoils and lifted a lump into the air. The flesh was ready to melt off the bone.

A child’s arm hung from the shimmering knife.

The attached hand had thin, dexterous fingers. Steaming with heat. Boiled white and lifeless.

Shock instantly hollowed Will out. His lip trembled as he gaped.

Will gripped the man’s throat in his hands before he even knew how he got there. He pressed the man into the snow with his weight. The rage and grief rolled through him and sang in every fiber of his being, transforming into strength. Even this close, the demon’s face was obscured—like a spot in Will’s eye that had been blinded by prolonged light. Still, he could see how sweet the meat of the demon’s cheeks would be. Where was the knife? He searched for it, blurry eyed.

White, dead fingers laid over Will’s grip as it cinched tighter. The ghost touch was ice cold.

That wasn’t right.

Will blinked firmly. The demon twisted in a wicked and toothy smile.

He blinked again and Hannibal’s reddened face was below him. His thin hands were weak on Will’s wrists.

Will jerked away—drumming and shaking with adrenaline. Hannibal doubled over coughing. The sound was muffled in the blanket that trapped them together.

Reality doused Will with icy clarity, and he scrambled at once to get away.

Hannibal grabbed him with a feeble hand before he could. The boy kept the other over his already purpling throat, wheezing. His blond hair tangled over his forehead and eyes pierced Will from beneath the curtain.

Sound and thought and strength were stripped from Will. Hannibal would not let go, and Will could not break free.

—

The first sign that they were closing in on Klaipeda was a set of train tracks cutting through the woods. The platoon marched alongside them until houses appeared in clusters. Their windows lacked all signs of life, like grim and distant miniatures in a model. They were dusted with old snow that hadn’t seen enough sun to melt. Will felt outside of himself, like he was watching the scene from above.

At the first checkpoint outside Klaipeda, the Brits took the stage. They passed papers to the officers authorizing their passage across the Baltic Sea to Sweden. The documents expanded on fabricated orders to join Soviet forces trying to take control of Lübeck, Germany.

The officers radioed to the city to confirm. This was old hat to the colonel and his platoon. They waited with indifference until the colonel’s plant in the port corroborated their official story.

Once they passed the checkpoint, the men’s relief was palpable. It was finally sinking in that they weren’t simply traveling to another location, they were going home. They would indeed cross the Baltic Sea, but once in Sweden they would march across the moors to an Allied airbase. They’d be carried away to friendly territory, far from the front lines. However long it took, this was their first step to home.

Will staggered numbly on while the rest celebrated.

The deep chain of purple around Hannibal’s neck hid beneath his coat. There were spots of red in his already maroon eyes. The sight made Will’s stomach turn. He had checked Hannibal’s larynx himself, feeling for any strangeness or swelling in his throat.

Hannibal didn’t indicate that he felt any lingering pain. In fact, Hannibal said nothing—he conveyed nothing. His piercing attention on Will did not relent, yet it didn’t reveal anything Will could perceive as fear or resentment. The boy remained silent and indiscernible.

In the morning, Hannibal presented Will with the letter for his uncle. It was sealed and addressed in elegant script to a Count Robert Lecter. Will promised to keep it safe until they were out of Lithuania. He tucked it into the hidden lining of his coat alongside the logbook. Together they sat heavy against his heart.

The chilling brush of wind brought the unmistakable scent of the sea. It washed through Will with nostalgia. And a sudden, nervous anticipation.

Soon they would be carried away out of this winter. Out of death’s grip.

Upon entrance to the city the platoon was forced to forfeit their truck. Aside from that, their group was largely ignored and they were routinely escorted to the port as their documentation instructed. They followed the river that bisected the city, and the effects of war were put on display around them. There were Soviets here, but not the force the colonel had anticipated. The Germans were in retreat now and the Soviets were focused on taking Warsaw, if they hadn’t already.

The Soviet soldiers noted Hannibal with little interest. An orphaned Lithuanian child wasn’t anything new to them. It gave Will a thrill of hope, and he clutched the boy against him. Maybe Hannibal would not be missed. Maybe he would not be noticed.

The Lithuanian presence here was a muffled whimper. There was rubble on the street, shattered windows. Stale fear and resentment saturated the cobbled roads seeped up and into Will. The oppressed and furious voices of a smothering country clattered in his brain. Will pulled off his hood and shook loose his hair to rid himself of the feeling.

Hannibal nudged into him, cradling closer. He peered from the corner of his eye as he always did when Will lost himself. The subtle comfort warmed him until Will spotted the shadows hiding under the boy’s collar. The impressions of his fingers remained in Hannibal’s skin like dents in clay.

The port was surprisingly crowded. Their Soviet guide took them through the maze of harbors to their intended ship. It was a private vessel that had clearly been claimed by the Soviet Navy. There were soldiers already being packed tightly onto it, over a hundred men—maybe two. They were all headed for Sweden, then most would go on to Germany. No one would bother tracking the colonel’s dingy platoon of thirty if they disappeared at the next port. If anything, the passengers would likely appreciate the elbowroom.

Hannibal made himself small at Will’s side and kept his head down. There were soldiers watching.

Will’s heart pounded as they approached the ramp onto the boat. He slowed, letting the ship’s passengers pour around him. He made eye contact with one of the soldiers, then glanced guiltily away.

Someone shouted from afar and two soldiers dove into the sluggish crowd, making a beeline for them.

Hannibal tried to tug forward toward the ship, but Will held him still. He stopped and waited.

Hannibal’s eyes bore up at him and widened in the slow realization. Shining with betrayal.

Zeller and Jimmy Price were the first to see what was happening. They maneuvered through the crowd to the colonel.

The soldiers yanked Will and Hannibal to the side. Will showed them his papers and kept strictly to the Russian he knew. Will’s accent was convincing, but he would be exposed the moment he reached the limits of his vocabulary.

Crawford spotted them from the ship, radiating his alarm and fury. He grabbed one of the Brits and sent them down after Will.

The Soviets checked Hannibal for injuries and blanched at the bruising around his neck. They pulled Hannibal away from him and Will’s hand dropped heavily to his side. One of the soldiers grabbed Will’s collar to hold him in case he tried to run. They searched for any identifying possessions on Hannibal. The knotted cord dropped from his pocket and stopped at Will’s foot.

The boy fought the urge to retrieve it, and kept perfectly still while they pulled open his coat. They recognized Hannibal’s uniform instantly. Will had been right, it was from an orphanage.

When they interrogated Hannibal to no effect, Will quickly explained that the boy was mute. He knew how that would sound. He knew how this looked. Suspicion solidified in their eyes toward Will, and compassionate pity toward Hannibal. That was all Will could ask for.

One of the Brits reached him then and inserted himself into the conversation with perfect Russian. He smoothly confirmed that no one had heard the boy speak, laughing about it. His eyes widened at the bruises, but he lied effortlessly. The platoon had found him that way. When the soldiers told the Brit about the uniform and the orphanage Hannibal likely came from, the Brit thanked them and hoped they could return him safely.

Will swallowed dryly. He felt faint. The Brit kept thanking them. The soldiers would contact the orphanage and inquire about a missing child. Thank you, thank you.

Hannibal glanced behind for the knot that had been abandoned at Will’s feet. Then to Will. The lump lodged in Will’s throat stopped his voice. The soldiers pushed Hannibal on and he was forced to look away.

The Brit similarly pressed into Will’s shoulder and whispered harshly in his ear, “Get on the fucking boat, Graham.”

Will knelt quickly to snatch the knot up and shove it in his pocket. His chest heaved, and blood pumped through him so sharply Will thought he would split open.

Then there was shouting and a gunshot.

All eyes went to the street where a blur dashed between the buildings and was chased by a handful of soldiers. They screamed and waved their arms at the others not to fire, as they too disappeared into the narrow street.

Will broke from the crowd and sprinted after them. The Brit grabbed at him, but Will would not be stopped.

His boots clapped on the cobblestone, and his voice echoed in the tight grid of buildings.

“Hannibal!”

He didn’t slow down, even when he spied the soldiers searching down the alleys at an intersection. He ran on the parallel street past them.

He called again, “Hannibal!”

He saw the blur dart across a courtyard, and Will raced around the building.

When he turned the corner, the boy smashed into him.

He took Hannibal’s wrist, but the boy fought him. They wrestled until Will had to grab him around the center and hoist him into the air. Hannibal thrashed with muted screams, kicking and punching at what he could reach.

He grabbed Will’s hand and viciously bit into the flesh—immediately piercing the skin. He tore into the meat and Will cried out. Will dropped to his knees, but he wouldn’t let go. He used all his strength to coil over the boy and cage Hannibal with his body. He battered against Will, his teeth digging ever deeper.

Will panted at the top of Hannibal’s head, against the pain, and roughly nuzzled his hair as tears spilled over. They held together until the boy gradually went still. Hannibal’s jaw slacked open and he shook with a single heaving breath—one shaking sob. Hannibal curled into Will's chest as if to crawl inside, and Will crushed tighter around him.

Will couldn’t find the words. He could only hold him.

The soldiers eventually caught up . Will tore away and handed the boy over. Hannibal's eyes were wet. His mouth was bright with blood.

Will dug for the knot and pushed it into Hannibal’s hands. The soldiers did not stop him.

Even as Hannibal was led away, his gaze didn’t break from Will. Not for an instant, not until they disappeared around the corner.

Will returned to the boat.

As he walked up the ramp, Will made a fist with his injured hand. It stretched the bite until it gaped open and bled freely.

This scar would not fade.


	14. Chapter 14

Hannibal’s letter sat heavy in his hand.

After finally arriving in France in April, it was clear that leaving for the U.S. wouldn’t be so easy. Will’s platoon and thousands like them were gathering for their final departure and were camped in the farmland outside of Paris. It was only a matter of time before the war ended. All that was left was to wait.

He quickly learned that the civilian post through Paris was backlogged almost three years.

Will tapped the envelope against his palm. He wouldn’t risk sending it. Not when he couldn’t trust that the letter wouldn’t be intercepted or lost in the sea of others.

He leaned over the map across his knees. His camp was marked on it in red along with the other tent cities the Allies occupied. Battalion titles were listed where they were known. This information held little interest for Will.

He instead stared a hole into what sat just below Paris.

Essonne.

There it was, just east of where they were currently camped. His first impulse was to abandon the platoon and walk there himself, but Essonne wasn’t a town as he had assumed. It was a region containing dozens of villages and communes. Count Lecter was a needle in a haystack.

In light of this, Will turned to the only person he could rely on.

“Jack.”

“Will.”

This was the first time they had really spoken since what transpired in Klaipeda.

The man sat in his tent at a small folding table covered in paper. One document Will could see was a letter written with a sleek, feminine hand. His wife in Baltimore.

“The war is almost over. We’ll be going home soon.”

If Will had learned anything from James Crawford, it was that nothing was ever over. There would always be another mission.

The colonel’s superiors were thrilled by the success of their impromptu rescue in Kaunas. It had put the colonel in a chipper mood and Will hoped that would work in his favor.

“Sir, I have a request.”

Jack was all smiles. “What can I do for you, Will?”

“It’s about the boy.” Will knew there could have been a more formal way to ask, but he couldn’t stomach groveling. “He has family in France. I thought—”

“He could speak?”

The lie was easy, “No. He wrote to me.”

“In _English_? When were you planning on telling me?”

“I wasn’t,” Will instantly bit out. Then he chewed his defiant tongue before he said anything else he might regret. Honesty was best now. He took out the letter. “It’s for his uncle in Essonne. I want to deliver it.”

“Give it to me.”

“It’s harmless, Jack—”

The colonel snatched the letter, but had the decency to treat it with care when he opened it. It was written in Hannibal’s native language. There was very little on the page, which was good. There was little for the colonel to be suspicious of. Will saw ‘Lecter’ in the text, but spotted no discernable address.

“Show me what he wrote to you.”

Will kept his eyes on the ground. “I can’t.”

He could almost hear the colonel grinding his teeth.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“It was in my logbook.” Will knew admissions disguised lies better than anything else. “I burned it.”

Before they settled in their camp outside of Paris, the colonel had ordered his men to turn in or destroy any sensitive documents pertaining to their campaign in Europe. Now that it was over, it was time to black out the ledger.

With the edge of his knife, Will had cut out the offending pages. All record of the colonel’s missions—dates and targets—crinkled to ash in the fire.

What was left of the book stayed in the hidden pocket over his heart. Even if someone were to pat down his heavy coat, it was thin enough now to go entirely unnoticed.

He snarled at the ground, “You owe me, Jack.”

The colonel folded the letter with deliberate slowness.

“Are you threatening me, Sergeant Graham?”

“Why would I? I'm just as guilty as you are.” He glared openly at his colonel, “There’s blood on both our hands.”

The chair creaked when Jack leaned back into it.

Will glanced meaningfully at the open letter from Jack’s wife. Will remembered hearing she was sick.

“When you go back home, and think about at what we’ve done here… What’ll haunt you, Jack?”

For a tense moment, they stared one another down.

Soon enough these men would return to the US. They would report to their station in Baltimore, then go their separate ways. Jack would go back to his wife. He would follow through with his promise of a scholarship for Will, and Will would eventually allow himself to think of the future.

For now, however, they were sunk in this filth together.

Jack nodded his head with smirk on his face.

“Alright, Will. You win.”

—

Will was surprised by the effort Jack made to help him. Maybe his good conscience ran deeper than Will thought.

When they contacted the station at Étampes within Essonne, Jack tracked down the Count’s chateau. It helped that the man was famous enough to be recognized by name. Robert Lecter was a well-known artist this little corner of France and had been arrested after the Nazi takeover because of it.

Will felt foolish when he realized how many soldiers were doing exactly what he was trying to do. All over the country, fellow soldiers were delivering final letters to the families from those they had lost. He hitched a ride to Étampes and was warmly received at the station. He hiked the rest of the way to Chateau Vigo following the river. He walked through a number of small villages and each one pointed him onward until he reached his destination.

Spring rain pattered at his shoulders as he trudged through a woods not unlike his own in Wolf Trap. He stepped into a clearing and saw the heavy iron gates of Chateau Vigo looming open. The evening sun cast an orange glow across the graceful estate. It was difficult to admire the architecture when the face of the chateau had a German tank crashed into it.

Will’s gut twisted and he instinctively pulled his rifle in his hands. He sloshed through the overgrown grass toward the building. The station confirmed where the Count lived, but was he still alive? Was there anyone left for Hannibal?

A closer look at the tank did bring him some relief. It had been there long enough that someone had decorated it with window boxes full of flowers. He could see now that there were lights on in the chateau.

He slung his rifle onto his back and approached the door. Holding his breath, he knocked.

The door opened a crack and the housekeeper greeted him with a wary glance. He spoke to her in French, asking for the Count. The mastiff at her feet pushed open the door, sniffing curiously at him.

Will offered her his hand and the old dog puffed air through her cheeks. He chuckled.

Somewhat disarmed, the housekeeper left the dog with him and retreated into the house.

Soon enough the Count himself came to the door.

“Do you have business with me?”

Will spotted familial resemblance right away in the man’s angular cheekbones and severe eyes.

“I’m Sergeant Will Graham.” He extended the letter, suddenly finding it hard to speak—to explain himself. “From your nephew.” He clarified quickly, “He’s alive.”

The Count smiled the instant he saw Hannibal’s handwriting. He read the letter quickly, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I thought…” He glanced at the back of the paper. Hannibal hadn’t written a proper address for the chateau. “How did you get this?”

“I met him outside of Vilnius.”

The shock was plain on his face, “You were there?”

Will nodded.

“And you came all this way?”

Will stepped back, nodding again.

The Count’s face bloomed with gratitude and fondness. He threw open the door with a broad smile, and called Will inside. “Please, come in.” He guided Will to a parlor and clipped quickly in French, “Don’t mind the tank, we plan to have it removed now that I can sell my ‘subversive’ pictures again.”

The rooms were cavernous over them with a sweeping staircase in the foyer. In the parlor, the walls were decorated with lush drapes and works of art. Only now did Will realized how filthy he was. He made himself small, afraid he might stain the floor where he walked.

The Count sat him down, then motioned for his housekeeper, “This is Madame Brigitte, she’ll get you something from the kitchen.” Unguarded warmth overflowed from Hannibal’s uncle as he perched on his own chair. “Now tell me, please. How is my nephew?”

Will’s throat was tight, “He’s alive. He’s safe.” As safe as he could be.

“And his sister? Is Mischa with him?”

The housekeeper leaned in from the doorway, listening keenly for his reply. Will shook his head weakly and a mournful silence swallowed them all.

Will gulped loudly, “My platoon found him in the woods in January. He didn’t say where he came from, so we kept him with us until we reached Klaipeda.” He tried to keep as neutral as possible. Recounting the facts, “Some soldiers recognized the uniform he was wearing and sent him back to the orphanage. I’m sure it’s near Vilnius, but Hannibal didn’t tell me where. I’m sorry.”

“He’s home at Lecter Castle.” The Count summoned his housekeeper, and Will took the warm cup of tea she had prepared. It smelled divine. The Count continued, “He said the Soviet’s have repurposed it as an orphanage.”

The housekeeper put a plate of roasted vegetables and herbed chicken. Modest though it might be by the Lecter’s standard, Will hadn’t seen such delectable food in four years. He savored it as best he could, battling his ravenous stomach.

“He didn’t mention Mischa in the letter, but I had hoped…” He didn’t linger in that sadness long, instead turning to what could be done for his living nephew. Will admired him enormously for that. “I’ll fetch him myself. We’ll bring him home, Mr. Graham.”

Will should have felt relief. This was what he had been so desperate to hear. It was a lovely, extravagant home. Hannibal would want for nothing here.

Ravenous, red eyes stared at him from the dark.

In the parlor, Will watched darkness manifest as a thick cloud of swarming insects. They gathered over an empty chair across the room. Will felt the red stare from within it, and he stared back. He observed the mass of writhing dark without judgement or fear. It did not sicken him as it once would have.

The shape solidified in the chair and it was Hannibal Will saw.

His hands were held open in his lap, cradling the twisted knot. Or was it the creases and folds of Will's brain. Or was it the tubes and lumps of his heart.

Will rubbed his hand over his eyes.

Far from Hannibal’s side, he was starting to see clearly. His vision of blood, the offering of flesh, the boiling pot. It wasn’t Will. The hands that strangled the hungry, filthy demon in his nightmares were not his.

He had become the monster hiding under Hannibal’s skin. It had blurred with his own darkness. It writhed within him, stretched and filled to the edges of his being.

Will stood, rather abruptly. “I should be going. I’ve taken too much of your time already. Thank you for the meal.”

“We are glad to have you, Mr. Graham.” The Count followed him, “Please, stay and let us thank you properly.” The Count grabbed Will’s hand before he could reach the door. His eyes, maroon like Hannibal’s, were what stopped him. “You’ve brought my nephew back to life, Mr. Graham.” He possessed an artist’s intuition and an old man’s recklessness. He spared Will neither. “I can tell you care a great deal for him. You wouldn’t have gone so far for him if you did not.”

A shudder of weakness took over and Will’s head dropped on his shoulders.

The Count pressed a pen and paper into Will’s hand, insisting he take it.

“Tell me where to find you. I will write to you when he’s home.”


	15. Chapter 15

Tired old boats bobbed in the green water of the canal. Their fitted covers were faded from neglect and the elements. The cool breeze off the water drew out a handful of lazy residents. Students lounged in the shadow of trees, pouring over their books. A couple dangled their feet over the edge of the canal, tempting fate to steal a shoe and have it plunk in the glassy surface below.

Will, too, was drawn in. He strolled along the edge until he found a bench. The evening sky was streaked with ruddy orange and saturated pinks. The array of color glinted along the path of water.

There were no leveled homes at the banks of the canal. There were no smoking piles of rubble. The last time Will had seen Paris, there were tanks rolling down the street. The war ended and thousands poured into the city. The cacophony of their lamentations and celebration resounded somewhere deep in Will’s thoughts.

It had been ten years since the war ended.

In his hands he gripped the tattered logbook. It had stayed in his hand or against his breast throughout his journey. Not once in that time did he open it. Not on the boat that bore him across the ocean, or on the train to France. Not in the cramped Paris hotel. Not in the taxi that brought him here.

He had run out of excuses.

Now he was on a bench in Paris, staring into the middle distance. The canal was overlapped by a more pressing image. Pillars of black trees on a white canvas.

With this as his backdrop, the book felt at home in his hands. The scar arching around his thumb was as pale as the snow. The skin was tight. He stretched it now, flexing it mindlessly. A tingling sensation shot down his thumb, followed by a persistent numbness.

Folded in the book was a letter, the second he had received from France.

The first had come a year after his return to America, to his little home in Wolf Trap, Virginia. It was a year of waiting and walking down his long, unpaved drive to his mailbox. Seasons passed like lenses of color shuttering over the same scenery. Cicadas cried under the sweltering sun while his dogs ran through vibrant grass. In another blink, Will kicked through copper leaves. Blink, and he clomped through thick snow. Blooming flowers came and went, battered from their branches by spring rain. Then summer came again.

He drifted in limbo for so long he had almost forgotten what he was waiting for. The reason had been trapped floating in the deep dark of a frozen lake.

Will collected his mail as usual on a hot summer morning. He wiped the sweat from his neck, shuffling through the envelopes as he climbed the wooden steps to his door. Count Robert Lecter’s name jumped from the stack. His knees folded and he dropped on the steps like a sack of bricks.

Will’s hands shook so badly he could hardly open it.

Much like the man himself, the letter was full of life. The Count’s fondness for his nephew was evident. Hannibal was adjusting well to their home in Essonne, so he told Will. Will imagined the boy walking up on Chateau Vigo for the first time, passing under the iron gate. Striding through the grass and affronted by the German tank. Or perhaps the Count had removed it before Hannibal’s arrival.

Will shuffled the letter for the next page and a photograph slipped out, floating to the dirt. The dogs instantly sniffed at it and Will snatched it up.

It was Hannibal, glancing regally to the side. He was a little older than Will remembered, well-groomed and well-dressed. There was no cryptic or predatory glint in his eye. It had been replaced with boredom. Will’s face split in a painful smile. He looked normal.

If Hannibal could do it, so could Will. He forced time to move forward once more.

He took Crawford’s scholarship and attended George Washington University. He let himself be absorbed in his studies, and it held off the memories of blood and violence waiting at the fringes of his mind.

All it would take was a step off the dock, and Will would plunge into them. The flicking silver knife, the broken skin of his knuckles, the line of corpses left crumpled in the snow. Offerings of flesh made to a merciless god.

Will heard a bell toll from some far off church, then other bells joined it in a chorus that resounded across the whole city. He checked his father’s pocket watch. Not that it mattered.

He stretched the scar over the tattered logbook, flicking a finger at the letter sticking out.

It was probably gone by now. He had taken too long. He sighed, dropping his head in his hand. He had taken too long.

The second letter had come to Wolf Trap a few weeks ago, from an address in Paris.

_Mr. Graham,_

_I hope you have been well these past years. I believe it is your right to know that your visage is being displayed in a gallery for sale. I have provided the curator’s address if you wish to write him._

_Murasaki Shikibu_

He packed his boat before he gave himself the chance to think about it. He could almost claim it was an impulse. One he was left to mull over for almost three weeks across the Atlantic.

He stared at the small storefront gallery across the canal and knew he couldn’t delay it any longer.

After ten long years, he peeled open the book.

Hannibal’s neat script was waiting for him just as he remembered. Smooth and elegant in some lines, slanted by speed and emotion in others. All Hannibal.

_Hannibal Lecter VIII_

_Please let me keep it. I won’t run._

_Where will you go when the war is over?_

There were little sketches of Will here and there. His hand, his profile.

_It’s my birthday today._

_Are you alright, Will?_

_I thought of God._

_You would deny what you are?_

Though he had seldom heard the boy’s voice, he could almost catch the melody of his phrasing.

_Who is deserving of your anger, Will?_

He lingered on Hannibal’s last written words, the final page he had seen. After that conversation, the boy never showed the book to Will again. Will knew what waited on the other side. That was why he hadn’t looked.

He was a fool to think he was prepared for it.

He lifted the corner and unfolded Hannibal’s mind in his hands.

Illustrations filled every inch of the paper, vibrating and melding together.

Will’s fingers hovered above the words as if he could feel their heat radiating.

Will’s sunken eyes glinting in the fire. Studies on his grumpy smirk, the swirling pattern of his facial hair. Pagers were dedicated to his hands, knit together or gripped in fists. Stitching Hannibal’s thumb. The wounds on Will’s hands were emphasized, catching light and casting unnatural shadows. The furrow of Will’s brow graced most portraits of him, which made Will huff a laugh.

Hannibal recorded their interactions—all of their time together. Will’s blood chilled when he met his face, clear as a photograph, locked in never-ending relish as he drew back a fist to pummel the rebel beneath him. Will, asleep in his cot. Will standing firmly in the crowd of fearful POWs.

Hannibal cherished every detail. Will could step into himself, fill the cavity of each moment one by one, and return to them as if he were still there.

Will leaned into Hannibal’s hand, weeping with palpable relief as Hannibal comforted him after Kaunas. Will looked so young. Vulnerable.

What followed was a slew of unreadable expressions—incomplete portraits of Will—glimpses of his eyes, the folds of his lips. Bleeding in the gaps were equations and sketches of the knot Hannibal had been making. With each tangle of the knot, another layer was added to Hannibal’s vision of Will—and yet it was woefully unsatisfying to him. Hannibal’s frustration leaked from the book and into Will’s hands. Not good enough—not right.

The frustration evaporated with the final image that had been drawn over two pages.

It was from the night Will showed Hannibal where to find Polaris.

He could hear Hannibal’s creaking voice in his mind. He shaped Will’s name with a rolling tongue and said, “I have never met anyone like you. I doubt I ever will.”

In the portrait, Will’s hands were folded over his chest. The anxious tension that was his constant companion was nowhere to be seen. His neck and shoulders were stretched out and relaxed.

A sincere and free smile brightened his eyes in a way Will had never seen—not in a picture or a mirror. Hannibal had captured Will’s laugh, beaming from the page.

It was an expression Will didn’t know he was capable of.

A feeling not unlike madness crawled up the back of Will’s neck and washed over him. He stowed the flimsy book in his pocket and stalked to the bridge, crossing the canal. The gallery was well lit, inside and out. The large glass windows revealed a surprising number of visitors within.

He opened the door, releasing the murmuring drone of people into the street. He greeted who he assumed was the curator upon entry with a mumble and polite nod. The hand in his pocket balled in a fist over the book. He followed the flow of the crowd as they cycled through the first floor. There were a great number of paintings, pastels. Some pencil sketches. They were pleasant, but unpolished. He rolled his eyes at mediocre impressionists and copycats, not a breath of soul to their art.

They weren’t what he was looking for, and that was reason enough for him to bypass the procession and go upstairs. The stairwell held works of art as well, and those who paused to examine them clogged the path. Standing idle on the stairs, Will’s nerves started to eat at him. He tapped his foot on the wood.

The picture was probably already gone. It had been weeks since the letter. He was considering turning around and storming out the door, but he had to see. He had to know for sure.

The crowd crawled to the second floor. The voices around him invaded his thoughts. Flashes of these strangers’ lives came from peaks in their intonation, the slide of their petty eyes, fumbling hands, arrogant smiles. He read their signals like blaring tabloids.

He blocked out their noise, holding a hand over his ear.

Then there they were.

A quarter of the far wall was covered with sketches that stopped Will in his tracks.

The technique had been refined. Better materials provided a more flattering reflection of his skill, but Will knew the hand that made these. Hannibal was in every line.

Will was tugged closer at the end of an unseen string.

There was an assortment of anatomical renderings on display, done with breathtaking accuracy. They were hatched and shaded like Leonardo’s drawing of man. Lungs blossomed from behind retracted ribs. The shell of the human skull lifted free to expose a soft, tangled brain. Limbs were bisected, fanning layers of skin, muscle, and sinew down to the bone. The side of a man’s face was dissected to reveal the muscles that formed his subtle expression. A heart was split down the middle to show how sorrowfully empty the exposed chambers were.

Some were framed, but most were held in place on the wall by pins. Will was not surprised to see that many were already sold. He could only imagine their usefulness in the medical community.

Scattered in the spread were a few other subjects. There were botanical illustrations here and there, even a watercolor or two. A sailboat on choppy water, songbirds perched in flowering branches. Will smiled.

Then finally Will stared into his own face tucked in the corner. The sudden pounding of his heart left him lightheaded.

It wasn’t a sketch as he had expected, but a framed painting.

A flurry of snow swept across the image. Will’s old boots dug into the white turf. Matted curls peaked from under his coat’s hood and framed his scruffy face. His cheeks were flushed with cold, eyes penetrating from the shadow. His rifle hung from its strap at his side, forgotten. He gripped his removed glove with an intensity that was only disarmed by the twitch of an honest smile at his lip. He held out his other hand, pink and exposed.

Without thinking, Will reached to touch it.

Someone spoke at his shoulder in French, “It’s not for sale.”

Will took a startled breath and answered. “I’m not interested in buying it.”

He stood apart from the painting and pushed his glasses more securely on his face.

He pivoted to go, but a hand stopped him. The fingers were long and thin.

“Are you sure?” The speaker changed to English, “I could make an exception for the right buyer.”

The lilt was unmistakable, an accent that couldn’t be shaken. Will’s stomach dropped.

He turned to meet a dark and fathomless stare.

“Hello, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for all your comments and love! I've had so much fun writing this. I feel like I could have completely ended the story here, and it would be enough. But... I don't have any self-restraint! So the sequel is up and running.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
